Could it be a scrap of Alexander the Great’s clothing?
A fragile piece of purple-and-white fabric, frayed over more than two millenniums, that was found in one of a series of tombs in northern Greece decades ago is at the center of a new claim ruffling feathers in the country’s archaeological community.
The debate erupted this month after Antonis Bartsiokas, a paleoanthropologist at Democritus University of Thrace, published a paper arguing that one of the tombs, believed up to now to house the remains and treasures of Alexander’s father, actually held items belonging to Alexander the Great himself and his half brother. That included a purple chiton, or tunic.
The claim challenges the work of one Greece’s most renowned archaeologists, Manolis Andronicos, who led the discovery of the tomb in 1977. Mr. Andronicos, who died in 1992, had asserted that the tomb and artifacts belonged to the father, Philip II of Macedon, whose military victories united ancient Greece and laid the foundation for his son’s conquests from Egypt to India.
Mr. Bartsiokas, who specializes in the microanalysis of fossils, instead believes it was Alexander’s half brother, Arrhidaeus, or Philip III, who was buried in the tomb, along with some of Alexander’s possessions, including the chiton, a piece of purple cotton with a layer of white fabric in between.
If the new claim were confirmed, it could upend long-held beliefs about one of the most important burial sites in Greece. Some Greek archaeologists say, however, that the claim is without substance.
Mr. Bartsiokas said he used new technology and his interpretation of an ancient frieze found in the tomb to make his case.
He also said that a golden scepter and diadem found in the tomb belonged to Phillip III, who wore it after his half brother’s death. Alexander’s remains have never been found, and that centuries-old search makes finding objects linked to him even more significant.
At the center of his argument are the type and color of the fabric — purple cotton — preciously rare in Greece in the fourth century B.C., when Alexander lived. But it was beloved by wealthy Persian royals, whom Alexander subdued when he conquered Persia.
Layers of white, dyed with another ore favored by the Persian elite, is further proof, the paper argued. Mr. Bartsiokas also pointed to a frieze painted on the walls of the tomb that depicts a hunting scene of the Macedonian elite, which he believes features Alexander at the center wearing what appears to be a purple chiton.
The royal tombs, discovered in 1977 outside the town of Vergina, are part of an ancient city complex that was once the capital of one of antiquity’s most expansionist kingdoms, Macedon. Mr. Andronicos, the archaeologist, was widely credited with finding the final resting place of Phillip II.
In a written response to The Times, when asked to comment on the critics of his paper, Mr. Bartsiokas said: “They will have objections without providing any adverse evidence as they have done so far. Stubbornness dies hard.”
Mr. Bartsiokas also accused the late Mr. Andronicos of having suppressed evidence of artifacts that originated from a period a generation later, which he says would debunk the claim that the tomb belonged to Phillip II.
This is not the first time Mr. Bartsiokas’ take on the tombs has riled Greece’s archaeology community.
In 2000, he argued that the remains found in the tomb could not belong to Phillip II, drawing a line between the old king’s known injuries and evidence on the bones. Many Greek archaeologists dismissed him then, and are doing so again.
“There’s fertile ground for speculation, but such discussions are baseless,” Stella Drougou, emeritus professor of classical archaeology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, told the Greek newspaper ProtoThema. Ms. Drougou, who led the excavation of the tombs after Mr. Andronicos’ death, added that Mr. Bartsiokas’ theories ran counter to data collected during excavations. Ms. Drougou did not respond to a request for comment.
Verifying ancient ruins and artifacts can be extremely difficult. For a figure like Alexander, who believed himself to be the son of a god and was wrapped in mythology even during his lifetime, that task is all the more difficult.
James Romm, a professor of classics at Bard College, said he believed that Mr. Bartsiokas’ theories could be legitimate. The resistance to his theories stems from “a combination of reverence for Philip II and reverence for Andronicus,” said Mr. Romm, who is the author of “Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire.”
Mr. Bartsiokas, though, may have undermined his own theory through his reading of the crumbling frieze in the tomb, he said. Some experts don’t think it is Alexander at its center.
“Although he may have very legitimate claims about the garment, he also layers them with other claims, for example, about the frieze that are harder to defend,” Mr. Romm said.
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