Alexander's Tomb: The Two-Thousand Year Obsession to Find the Lost Conquerer - Softcover

Saunders, Nicholas J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465072038 ISBN 13: 9780465072033

Publisher: Basic Books, 2007

Synopsis

Alexander the Great is a towering figure in world history, but despite our long-held fascination with him, his burial site is unknown. The search for Alexander's tomb began soon after his untimely death in 323 B.C. and continues even today. The epic pursuit of the tomb spans continents and centuries, and involves some of history's most iconic figures. This is the story not of a brief and spectacular life, but of a momentous and unexplained death, multiple burials, and the seemingly never-ending quest for a man-god's final resting place. Bringing together thousands of years of speculation, as well as new questions about the ramifications of actually solving the puzzle, Alexander's Tomb is a fascinating look at one of archaeology's greatest mysteries.

About this title

About the Author

Nicholas J. Saunders is a lecturer in the department of anthropology at University College, London, and a regular commentator on British television and radio.

From Publishers Weekly

Although the heroic exploits of Alexander the Great have been memorialized in fiction, films and biographies, the location of his tomb remains a mystery. British anthropologist Saunders (People of the Jaguar), an armchair Indiana Jones, deftly chronicles the various searches for Alexander's tomb by pharaohs, Christian emperors and archeologists from antiquity to the present. As Saunders tells it, while Alexander's corpse lay in state in Babylon in 321 B.C., a power battle among his generals led one of them, Ptolemy, to steal the corpse and carry it to Memphis in Egypt for burial. Later Ptolemy moved the body to Alexandria; 70 years later, one of Ptolemy's sons moved the body yet again to a more ostentatious home in Alexandria. Cleopatra plundered the tomb, and when Christianity became Rome's official religion in the fourth century A.D., Alexander's tomb may have been among the many pagan shrines and tombs destroyed throughout the empire. In 2004, one scholar speculated that Alexander's body lay beneath the altar of St. Mark's Church in Venice, buried by ninth-century Christians who mistook Alexander's remains for those of Saint Mark. Saunders's lively prose draws readers into this compelling tale of conquest, political intrigue and the aura surrounding one of history's great heroes. 16 pages of b&w photos. (July)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0465072038
• ISBN 13: 9780465072033
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 320