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The tomb of Alexander the Great is attested in several historical accounts, but its current exact location remains an enduring mystery. Following Alexander's death in Babylon , his body was initially buried in Memphis by one of his generals, Ptolemy I Soter , before being transferred to Alexandria , where it was reburied. [ 1 ]
Arrian and Plutarch claimed that Alexander was speechless by this time, implying that this was an apocryphal story. [192] Diodorus, Curtius and Justin offered the more plausible story that Alexander passed his signet ring to Perdiccas, a bodyguard and leader of the companion cavalry, in front of witnesses, thereby nominating him. [156] [190]
According to legend, Alexander went on pilgrimage to the Siwa Oasis, the sanctuary of the Greco-Egyptian deity Zeus Ammon in 331 BC. There, he was pronounced by the Oracle to be the son of Zeus Ammon, [2] allowing him to therefore have the Horns of Ammon, which themselves followed from Egyptian iconography of Ammon as a ram-headed god or, in his Greek-form, a man with ram horns. [3]
The text begins with a typical Arabic prayer to God asking for mercy and help in telling the story. Following the designation originating from the Quran, Alexander is often referred to by the title Dhu al-Qarnayn ('The Two-Horned One'). Likewise, from Muslim tradition Alexander's association with Khidr is retained. The text also contains many ...
The Alexander Mosaic of Pompeii, depicting Alexander the Great, king of Macedon, wearing the linothorax [6] Beginning around 575 BC, artists in the Aegean often show a distinctive style of armour with a smooth piece wrapped around the chest, two flaps over the shoulders, and a skirt of flaps covering the hips and belly. [7]
But the story showed where such a climb would lead, and proved that the great Alexander "was one of the greatest fools the world has ever seen". [ 10 ] Rice and Boardman have both argued that the figure on the Anglo-Saxon Alfred Jewel intended to represent this scene in order to represent the notion of one coming to knowledge through sight.
Alexander is sad, but is consoled by the wise old man; at this point the story shifts into questions asked to the wise man by Alexander and the responses he receives. [7] [8] This story draws on Christian iconography, where bathing in the fountain is represented in baptismal terminology, and the fish symbolizes Jesus who rises from the dead. [7]
Over the centuries, the myth of Alexander the Great, an illustrious conqueror of antiquity, has been enriched. History retains from him the image of a fine strategist and an ambitious monarch who managed, in little more than a decade, to constitute an immense empire going from Greece to India.