(Sorry FYROM)
The Greek Ministry of Culture, which has been keeping us up to date on the excavations, said in an announcement that the face of the western caryatid is saved almost intact whereas the face of the eastern caryatid is missing.
Their positioning is such to symbolically prevent entry to the tomb, while the technique used is the same with the two sphinxes' already found during the excavations.
Archaeologists also discovered traces of red and blue color referring to Kore female statues on the figures.
The arrangement of the tomb's second entrance, featuring the Caryatids, is another unexpected surprise and only hightens the excitement that the monument is of exceptional and major importance.
We here at HellasFrappe have featured various opinions about who may be buried at Amphipolis, and although we want to believe that it may be Alexander the Great, we will be just as pleased if it is Roxane and/or someone else in the royal family. We are not alone. Andrew Chugg, the author of “The Quest for the Tomb of Alexander the Great,” told Discovery recently that the the tomb could possibly belong to Olympia, Alexander the Great’s mother, or his wife, Roxane.
His raises a good argument, since both Macedonian queens died at Amphipolis in the last quarter of the fourth century, which coincides with the date of the tomb.
Nonetheless we here at HellasFrappe are still hopeful that it could be Alexander's tomb and after the findings this weekend we are actually beginning to believe it. This is because we know that Alexander was a proud admirer of Athenian culture. His father King Phillip also admired the southern Greeks and that is probably why he hired the philosopher Aristotle to tutor his son.
It is true that Phillip took advantage of the disunity of the Greek city states, defeating an Athens that was paralyzed by political infighting, in the battle of Chaeronia in 338 BC. putting an end to the Delian league, but let us not forget that he then unified all the Greeks to the south of his kingdom in Pella.
When Phillip was assassinated in 336, Alexander immediately marched south with his armies in a campaign to solidify control of Greece. He united the Greeks as well as those in Asia Minor and then began his travels eastward where he conquered Greece's great enemy Persia, as well as the lands of Egypt and as far as India.
Did Alexander have the Caryatids in mind when he sent 300 Persian shields to Athens after his triumph at the Battle of Granicus, or when he asked for atonement at Delphi for killing 6,000 Thebans in retaliation for an uprising in 335 BC?
Who knows.
We will soon find out.
Editor's Note - We here at HellasFrappe understand the agony that FYROManians must feel these days - and we don't even want to analyze how this heightened after the findings last weekend. They must be in a complete nail-biting frenzy! We could just see Gruevski and his friend George Soros going frantic! It is probably very difficult for them to digest the fact that those two female guardians at this sacred tomb are of GREEK design -or Athenian- indicating the GREEKNESS of Macedonia's glory. This fact alone should finally force Gruevski to sh**t the hell up and get used to his country's given name which is Vardar! As for Soros... Expect him to use his fluffy-named humanitarian organizations to begin attacking Greece on a number of issues if the grave actually does belong to Alexander. Humans Right Watch is going to slam down hard on us, but hey... it is a small price to pay when we once again prove to the whole world that Macedonia IS, WAS and WILL ALWAYS be GREEK. Our advice to them: Suck it up buttercup!
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