Day 20: Alexander the Great

Okay, time to think about Indiana Jones. Start playing the theme song in your head and imagine a white haired man in the 1970s finding a huge mound in the middle of the plane. He begins to wonder what is under the hill and starts to dig. What he finds is miraculous. Is the theme song still playing in your head? Good! Because what this man finds is pretty cool: it's the tomb of Philip the II, the father of Alexander the Great. But the tomb hasn't been looted or decaying, instead it is fully intact. When the archeologists continues to digs he uncovers a huge tomb made of marble columns with beautiful decorations above the door. The blues are still radiant and the reds still brilliant. The door is at least 24 feet high and is pure white. When he walks into the tomb he finds bones of horses and a gold chest. Inside the chest are the ashes of Philip the II...the legendary king of Macedonia whose father was supposedly Zeus!

Philip the II was a very successful king, but also was very confident and waged war on many different peoples. In 326 BC things were relatively peaceful for him and he attended the marriage of his daughter, Cleopatra, to another royal. When Philip II entered the theatre where the marriage was to take place, one of his body guards assassinated him! His assassin tried to escape and run to place where his friends were waiting with a chariot, but was caught by three of Philip's other body guards and killed.

Alexander the Great arranged the funeral for his father, which was said to be the most elaborate funeral every seen.

But where did this whole story start? In Pella, about an hours drive from Vergina where the tomb lies. Pella was the capital of the Macedonian state (remember way back in the BC times there was no country of Greece, instead there were city-states like Athens, Corinth, Macedonia, etc -- which is actually a huge reason why there is the huge conflict between Greece and Macedonia now; see my previous post). The city is supposedly the birthplace of Alexander the Great and was where Philip II lived. It consists still of doric columns and intricate murals on the floor.

Pella is also famous as being the place where Helen was abducted from. Helen was abducted from this house in Pella by the son of King of Troy, which began to Trojan War. The picture to the left is of Pella, or what remains of it. At the moment the archeologists are still excavating the area around the site and will definitely find more ruins.

One of the most interesting finds they have found so far was a curse written on lead and found in the hand of one of the corpses. In the nine lines of the curse, the dead curses any woman who sleeps with her husband!

I unfortunately could not take pictures inside Philips II, but if you're interested in this subject you can google it and find more information.

Joey and Herbierto -- The Greek government is similar to the German and French system. There is a Prime Minister and Cabinet who has most of the power and the president does other executive duties. Orlando -- Yes, the government has a lot of problems similar to ours here in the U.S. There don't seem to be really strict laws though. I'm thinking specifically about the traffic police...everyone drives crazy here and there are no tickets, etc. (at least as far as I can tell!)

Diego, Jerrod, Ashley, Beatriz, Darnell -- You all asked about education. Students go to school September through June. All students have to go to school until 16. They have public schools, although they are not very good and most families try to get their children into private education. The government chooses the textbooks for the students and then every single student in the country uses that textbook in that specific grade. Most students now-a-days learn English as a second language.

Shannon -- I don't know what Greeks would say is the worst thing about Greece; everyone here is VERY proud to be Greek! It's a great country...you should visit at some point in your life.

Hope you're all doing well and the weather isn't quite as warm as it is here!

Cheers,

Ms. G