The Tumulus of the Macedonians

Unlike the members of the Theban Sacred Band, the victorious Macedonians who fell in battle were not deprived of their weapons. Following the ancestral Homeric custom of cremation – reserved to the members of the royal family – their fellow warriors gathered and burned their dead bodies together with their weapons. On the ashes of this majestic pyre, they raised a tumulus and created their own polyandrion in the centre of the valley, thus paying heroic honours to the dead Macedonians, rooted in the tradition of the epics.

Ashes, remains of human bones, parts of their equipment and armament, cavalry and horse equipment, fragments of vessels and personal objects, reconstruct the funeral pyre of the fallen Macedonians – people who took part in a historical battle and indeed taught by the side one of those whom world history calls Great. They were the ones who lived close to Alexander, stood beside him on the day of the battle, obeyed his orders and led by him into it. It is at this place that for the first time we get so close, archaeologically, to the great Conqueror.