History

Amphipolis was founded by Athens in 437 BC as a strategic colony on the Strymon River, controlling access to the timber forests and gold mines of Thrace. The city changed hands repeatedly in the Peloponnesian War — Athens went to war with Sparta partly over control of Amphipolis — and was later absorbed into the Macedonian kingdom under Philip II. At the time of Alexander the Great’s death (323 BC), Amphipolis was a major administrative centre of the Macedonian empire, and it remained important throughout the period of the Wars of the Successors.

The tumulus mound at Kasta had been visible on the landscape for centuries but was not systematically excavated until 2012, when Katerina Peristeri of the Greek Archaeological Service began work. The excavation proceeded in conditions of extraordinary public attention: each discovery — the sphinxes in 2012, the caryatids in 2014, the mosaic floor in 2014 — was broadcast live in Greece and covered internationally. The scale and quality of the construction, financed at enormous cost, indicated an occupant of the highest social status in the Macedonian world; the dating to approximately 325–300 BC placed the construction firmly in the period immediately after Alexander’s death.

Despite the extensive excavation and analysis, the identity of the occupant has not been definitively established. Multiple burials were found in the tomb from different periods, complicating the identification. The leading scholarly candidates remain Hephaestion (Alexander’s closest companion, who died in 324 BC and for whom Alexander ordered a massive state funeral), Roxane and Alexander IV (Alexander’s wife and posthumous son, murdered around 310 BC), and Olympias (Alexander’s mother, killed 316 BC).