Greece unveils palace where Alexander the Great became king

Ancient Aigai, Greece: It was the largest building of classical Greece: the palace where Alexander the Great was proclaimed king before he launched a conquest that took him as far as modern-day Afghanistan.

The site of Palace of Aigai, near modern day Vergina in northern Greece, has undergone a 16-year renovation that cost more than €20 million ($32.6 million) and included financial support from the European Union.

Part of the Palace of Aigai, built more than 2300 years ago during the reign of Alexander the Great’s father in ancient Aigai, Greece.Credit: AP

It was built more than 2300 years ago during the reign of Alexander’s father, Phillip II, who had transformed the kingdom of Macedonia into a dominant military power of Ancient Greece. Aigai was its royal capital.

“After many years of painstaking work, we can reveal the palace … What we are doing today is an event of global importance,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said at an inauguration event at the site on Friday.

The palace contained column-rimmed courtyards, courts, places of worship, and spacious banquet halls, its floors decorated with patterned marble and intricate mosaics. The building covered a ground area of 15,000 square metres, a little under the area covered by the US Capitol building.

Shaped like two adjoining, unequally sized, square donuts, the Palace of Aigai was the administrative and spiritual centre of the Kingdom of Macedonia. “Aigai provides important information about the culture, history and society of the ancient Macedonians, the Greek border tribe that preserved age-old traditions and carried Greek culture to the outer limits of the ancient world,” according to the UNESCO.

The palace’s remains and nearby royal tombs are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, the marble columns were resurrected by inserting pieces of stone unearthed in the ruins together with replica replacement parts.

It was the largest building of classical Greece: The palace where Alexander the Great was proclaimed king before he launched a conquest that took him as far as modern-day Afghanistan. Credit: AP

Some 65 kilometres south-west of the port city of Thessaloniki, Aigai drew international attention in the late 1970s during burial mound excavations in the rolling green hills and patches of wild poppies and daffodils.

The late Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos led the digs and discovered the royal tombs, recovering a gold casket and other gold artefacts, as well as bones widely believed to belong to Philip II. The discoveries revealed the sophistication of the ancient Macedonians, who had often been sidelined in historical accounts by attention on Athens.

Angeliki Kottaridi was still an archaeology student at university when she joined the project as a young assistant. She devoted her life’s work to the excavations and decades later became the driving force behind a new museum at Aigai, which opened a year ago, and the palace restoration.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, centre, visits the Palace of Aigai which opens for visits from Sunday.Credit: AP

She retired on December 31 as head of the region’s archaeological service and was honoured at Friday’s ceremony.

“What you discover is stones scattered in the dirt, and pieces of mosaics here and there,” Kottaridi told state television ahead of the inauguration.

“Then you have to assemble things and that’s the real joy of the researcher,” Kottariridi said. “So when people ask me what makes me happy, I tell them it’s not the moment something is revealed. It’s the moment you realise you can take the knowledge one step further.”

The renovated site will open to the public from Sunday.

AP