Museum of the Royal Tombs of Aigai (Vergina)

The collections housed in the museum are the grave goods recovered from archaeological excavations beginning in 1861 and continue to the present day.

Archaeology

Archaeologists were interested in the burial mounds around Vergina as early as the 1855 AD, supposing that the site of Aigai was in the vicinity. However, nothing more than empty tombs were found. Excavations began again in 1861 under the French archaeologist Léon Heuzey, sponsored by Napoleon III. Parts of a large building that was considered to be one of the palaces of Antigonus III Doson (263–221 BC), partly destroyed by fire, were discovered near Palatitsa, which preserved the memory of a palace in its modern name. The excavators suggested that this was the site of the ancient city of Valla, a view that prevailed until 1976. However, the excavations had to be abandoned because of the risk of malaria.

The first royal tomb was discovered by Konstantinos Romaios, professor of archaeology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki who uncovered it while working in the remains of the palace between 1937 and 1940. Much of the palace had been scavenged for construction materials by Greek refugees, who had been resettled there from Turkish Anatolia after the Greco-Turkish War. They built a new settlement at the site which they named Vergina after a legendary queen in 1922. But, the excavations were abandoned on the outbreak of war with Italy in 1940. World War II was followed by the Greek Civil War (1946-1949).

In 1949, excavations were finally resumed by Manolis Andronikos. Andronikos completed the palace excavations in 1970 then turned his attention to the Great Tumulus that he was convinced was a burial mound concealing the tombs of the Macedonian kings. There, in 1977, Andronikos uncovered four buried tombs, two of which had never been disturbed. Andronikos identified these as:

• Tomb II: the tomb of Philip II, father of Alexander the Great and also
• Tomb III: the tomb of Alexander IV of Macedon, son of Alexander the Great and Roxana.

Later they were identified by Antonis Bartsiokas as follows:

• Tomb I: Philip II (Alexander the Great's father)
• Tomb II: Philip III of Macedon (Alexander the Great's half-brother)
• Tomb III: Alexander IV of Macedon (Alexander the Great's son)

Tomb I also contained the remains of a woman and a baby, who Antonis Bartsiokas identified as Philip II's young wife Cleopatra Eurydice and their newborn child. Cleopatra Eurydice was assassinated along with her newborn child.

Although there was much debate for some years, as suspected at the time of the discovery Tomb II has been shown to be that of Philip II as indicated by many features, including the greaves, one of which was shaped consistently to fit a leg with a misaligned tibia (Philip II was recorded as having broken his tibia). Also, the remains of the skull show damage to the right eye caused by the penetration of an object (historically recorded to be an arrow).

Two scientists who studied some of the bones claimed in 2015 that Philip was buried in Tomb I, not Tomb II. On the basis of age, knee ankylosis, and a hole matching the penetrating wound and lameness suffered by Philip, the authors of the study identified the remains of Tomb I in Vergina as those of Philip II. Tomb II instead was identified in the study as that of King Arrhidaeus and his wife Eurydice II. The Greek Ministry of Culture replied that this claim was baseless, and that the archaeological evidence shows that the ankylotic knee belongs to another body which was thrown or put into Tomb I after this had been looted, and probably between 276/5 and 250 BC. Besides this, the theory that Tomb I belonged to Philip II had previously been shown to be false.

More recent research gives conclusive evidence that Tomb II contains the remains of Philip II and his Thracian wife, Meda. This would mean that the magnificent 5.6-metre wall painting above the entrance could be a hunting scene showing Philip and Alexander.

In 1987, a burial cluster including the tomb of Queen Eurydice I was discovered. Between 1991 and 2009, over 1,000 tombs were excavated along with city districts, farm houses, cemeteries, streets, sanctuaries and parts of the city fortification. A royal burial cluster of the Temenids, an ancient Macedonian royal house of Dorian Greek provenance, was also revealed. Then in March 2014, five more royal tombs thought to possibly belong to Alexander I of Macedon and his family or to the family of Cassander were discovered.