T H E 10 M O S T I M P O R TA N T M U S E U M S I N T H E C O U N T R Y
MUSEUM OF ROYAL TOMBS OF AIGAI VERGINA
T H E 10 M O S T I M P O R TA N T M U S E U M S I N T H E C O U N T R Y
T
he museum is made up of a huge underground shell that covers and protects royal burial block A’, the grave of Philipp B’, father of Alexander the Great, thus ensuring the required conditions of temperature and humidity to preserve the murals. It looks like a low hill, like the tomb that covered the graves. Coming down the imposing “road” that makes up the entrance to the inside of the tomb, the visitor is found in a dark burial area with the majestic royal burial monuments of the Macedonian dynasty, as they were buried underground: the grave of Philipp B’, two other royal Macedonian graves, the cist grave of another member of the royal family, possibly one of Philipp’s wives, and the foundations of the “heroon” of the tomb that was above ground, intended for memorials and worshipping of the dead it contained.
COOL HOTELS & VILLAS
T H E 10 M O S T I M P O R TA N T M U S E U M S I N T H E C O U N T R Y
Inside the 1,200 sq. m. rooms of the shell-museum, there are findings from the Great Tumulus: the painted tombstones with engraved names of Macedonians of the classic era, the remnants of the funeral pyre of Philipp’s grave and the treasures that accompanied the dead, the golden larnax, weighing 11 kg, that contained the bones of the king, the golden oak wreath of the deceased, the golden larnax with the bones of the female burial from Philipp’s grave, the golden-embroidered cloth that wrapped the bones, miniature art from the golden-ivory beds in the grave, the weapons that accompanied the dead etc. The visitor can also admire the murals of the seizing of Persephone and the royal hunt, one of the few large works of painting from classic antiquity saved to our days. COOL HOTELS & VILLAS