Remains of Alexander the Great's Father Confirmed Found

http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/remains-of-alexander-the-greats-father-confirmed-found-141009.htm

by megafounder • 12 years ago

94 43 12 years ago

news.discovery.com

fsloth2• 12 years ago

I am always amazed of the tenacity of factual information from past generations to survive. Even though Philip reigned in a historical age, the substrate which carried the stories to future generations has always been quite fragile. Writing is truly the most magical of our inventions, surpassing any others (until at least our AI descendant overlords arrive :) )

kilon5• 12 years ago

Personally I find that modern historians tend to be "jealous" of old historians and are quick to accuse them for misinformation, prejudice and superstition. But again and again the "myths" are proving to be the truth. Obviously not always. We live in an age that we tend to overestimate to great degree of our technology and underestimate the raw power of human mind. The ancients had both the means and the method to produce high quality work. Moreover a historian that would lie most likely he would be discredited quite easily by other historians of his time and his books would fall into disuse. We should not also forget that the world back then was way smaller than it is now , news would spread fast and vocal accounts would have been much easier to be kept in memory for centuries.

mercurial• 12 years ago

You have to consider that, especially in Roman times, ancient historians tended to produce works at the behest of a sponsor. Assuming that political motivations may twist their objectivity is not a stretch.

willvarfar• 12 years ago

Interesting how they identified the occupants by matching their wounds with the historical record.

lexcorvus• 12 years ago

Certainly the Art of Writing is the most miraculous of all things man has devised. Odin's Runes were the first form of the work of a Hero; Books, written words, are still miraculous Runes, the latest form! In Books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream. Mighty fleets and armies, harbors and arsenals, vast cities, high-domed, many-engined,—they are precious, great: but what do they become? Agamemnon, the many Agamemnons, Pericleses, and their Greece; all is gone now to some ruined fragments, dumb mournful wrecks and blocks: but the Books of Greece! There Greece, to every thinker, still very literally lives: can be called up again into life. No magic Rune is stranger than a Book. All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of Books. They are the chosen possession of men.

—Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History, 1840

tootie• 12 years ago

It's a shame that Philip of Macedon can't get his own billing. He was a legend in his own right before his son overshadowed him.

kilon5• 12 years ago

Anyone that studies history knows that without Philip , Alexander would not exist nor would have the means to be "Great". So I will have to disagree, at least here in Greece Philip is as big as his son , if not bigger. But then Philip would have to stand on the shoulders of previous leaders , who stand in shoulders of other city-states inside Greece who stood in the shoulder of other countries , etc etc and etc. Overemphasising historical figures is for people that learn their history from Hollywood movies.

argumentum• 12 years ago

without Philip , Alexander would not exist

Haha, you wouldn't need to know much about history to know that sons would not exist without their fathers ;)

mjn2• 12 years ago

It is a bit weird that the headlines around this find are mostly being phrased like that. We studied both in school, and I had assumed they were both pretty well known.

I guess for a headline-writer, though, "Alexander the Great" has near-universal recognition, while "Philip of Macedon" doesn't have enough to assume that a general audience will have their eye caught by the headline. So it ends up with this slightly dumbed-down phrasing.

iterationx• 12 years ago

What really gets no billing is the Wars of the Diadochi. I'm reading Ussher's "Annals of the World" and its quite amazing all the twists and turns in the battle for the empire.

vuldin• 12 years ago

From reading the article it's obvious that they have tons of very detailed information on Philip II. The only part of this title that fails to convey this is the title.

jogzden2• 12 years ago

As someone with a Macedonian background, what bothers me most is my father's reaction to this news when I told him about it. I am legitimately excited about this news, and all he could really think of was if the Greeks would claim Philip II as theirs and began ranting about the whole Alexander being Macedonian/Greek debate.

I understand his justification for thinking that way, but it's just sad that the Macedonians and Greeks won't be getting excited about the discovery, but will instead be using it to fuel the existing hatred between the countries.

user3141592653• 12 years ago

Lets not turn this into a Greek vs Macedonian thing.

Anyone that can read and think has already figured that out by now...

jogzden2• 12 years ago

Oh, I am not by any means trying to turn the news into something. I am merely expressing my distaste with nationalism and what it can do to people.

kilon5• 12 years ago

You exaggerate , Greeks dont hate you. Some angry, some frustrated , some don't care. As a Greek myself, I don't like to say to other countries what they should name themselves but there is an entire area in Greece already that is called Macedonia that is even more ancient than Alexander himself. So at best case scenario the name is at least an inconvenience for us. Its like France deciding to name itself London, how you think English people would feel ?

throwaway344• 12 years ago

The fact remains that much of the world does have just the very same issue of different places being named the same. Texas has a town called Paris, France has a somewhat larger and more amount town also called Paris. There's a La Paz, Mexico and a La Paz, Bolivia too.

From my perspective, nowhere else is the duplication of names quite so big a deal as it is in the context of Macedonia.

hanoz• 12 years ago

Perhaps they might retaliate in kind by naming themselves after a French region, say Brittany.

dghughes2• 12 years ago

The USA calling itself America and claiming only its citizens can be called Americans, when really all people from Canada to southern Argentina are Americans. Europeans live on the continent of Europe, Africans in Africa, Asians in Asia etc.

People counter with Canada, Mexico etc. are in North America and South America so why isn't the USA the USNA?

StavrosK• 12 years ago

As a Macedonian (the Greek kind), your father isn't that wrong. The government is already trying to use the tomb of Amphipolis for that, even contrary to scientific evidence.

I don't think anyone will even dispute that ancient Macedonia was this entire region, it stands to reason that tombs would be found all over the place. The claims over heritage/language/etc are rather different from that.

contingencies• 12 years ago

Nationalism is an infantile disease: the measles of mankind. - Einstein

oftenwrong• 12 years ago

I guess they could distinguish his father's remains from those of a slave. Checkmate, Diogenes.

lotsofmangos• 12 years ago

To be fair on him, Diogenes never said they couldn't, he said he couldn't.

Eliezer• 12 years ago

All we need now is the blood of his enemy and the flesh of his servant.

te_platt• 12 years ago

Hey, back to work. Some of us are a bit anxious for a few more chapters.

swombat• 12 years ago

On the one hand, Eliezer is not your bitch. Eliezer will write when Eliezer feels so inclined.

On the other hand...

PLEASE CAN YOU WRITE SOME MORE ELIEZER OH PLEASE KTHX BAI

Now, here's the good news, from http://hpmor.com/chapter/102

The current schedule calls for HPMOR to complete in early 2015. I am still writing the final arc so that I can post it without delays. As of Oct 1st I am 65,000 words in and working on Ch. 116. I will post Ch. 103, a brief one-shot, to announce when I have a definite schedule for posting the final arc.

w00t!

mmanfrin2• 12 years ago

We could trick a Theban from the Sacred Band in to touching the portkey.

antonioevans• 12 years ago

No they didn't. They found someone of elite burial with injuries similar to Philip II (how many elite burial sites are there..many). This is sensationalism not science. This will be argued for a long time.

mmanfrin2• 12 years ago

Is Philip of Macedon so unknown that he has to be referred to only as 'Alexander the Great's Father'?

Remains of Alexander the Great's Father Confirmed Found

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