According to the announcement, a chamber behind the Caryatids, a marble revetment is featured (or an ornamental paneling that clads the walls of the room) and this, claims the announcement, is a good sign since it was a symbol of great wealth in the ancient world.
Earlier on Wednesday, reports from Northern Greece said that during the excavations, two inscriptions were found in the tomb, and were immediately transferred to the Museum of Amphipolis for research.
On Tuesday the first axonometric representation was presented by the Greek Ministry of Culture's architect Mihalis Lefantzis. The representation, featured in the photo ABOVE, details the two walled entrances; the exterior which was decorated with two Sphinxes and the interior where the two Caryatids were located.
The archaeological efforts continue with the removal of dirt from the tomb’s interior, in an effort to clear a safe path to the next chamber behind the Caryatids.
The Ministry of Culture also announced that aside from the archaeological work, much care is taken to ensure the static efficiency of the tomb with conservation and support work being carried out.
Archaeologists are now entering the third chamber which will certainly surpass the excellence of the first two.
Cautious about making any statements to the media, the Greek team of archaeologists which is working at the site are not keen on making any estimations on what lies beyond door number three.
As the days go by and as more and more is revealed in Amphipolis the secret, which was well hidden for over 2000 years, and which is about to be revealed, is capturing the minds and imagination of the whole world. In fact the impressive finds that have been unearthed in this area of Northern Greece have drawn the attention of the international press (especially after archaeologists discovered the Caryatids).
They also caught the attention of National Geographic which apparently published an article asking “Who is buried in the tomb of Amphipolis?”.
It more or less refers to the recent unearthing of the two Caryatids, and quotes scholars such as Philip Freeman, who is a professor of classics at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa as saying “I do not know of anything quite like them”. Other Academicians such as Ian Worthington, a classical scholar at the University of Missouri in Columbia and the author of two books on Alexander the Great, argues in the article that the tomb probably belonged to a wealthy person.
“The finely crafted floor, is a clear sign of wealth. The palace of Pella [where Alexander the Great was born] yielded a number of mosaics, and they were all very costly.”The same view was also expressed by Hector Williams, who is an archaeologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He argues that this is “an enormous tomb, and one assumes that it was built for some prestigious and wealthy person,”.
One thing is certain, that those who constructed this burial site probably wanted to create some sort of mausoleum, or a structure that surpassed the glory and splendour of any other building of its sort during that period. If this is so, then we here at HellasFrappe are certain that the world is in for an amazing discovery.
Notes
(An architrave is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of the columns. It is an architectural element in Classical architecture. The word architrave is also used to refer more generally to a style of mouldings (or other elements) framing the top of a door, window or other rectangular opening, where the horizontal "head" casing extends across the tops of the vertical side casings where the elements join. Wikipedia)
(The Ionic order forms one of the three orders of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian. The Ionic capital is characterized by the use of volutes. The Ionic columns normally stand on a base which separates the shaft of the column from the stylobate or platform; The cap is usually enriched with egg-and-dart. Wikipedia)
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