Archaeologists in the northern city of Thessaloniki on Thursday are expected to announce that they have pinpointed the tomb of one of Classical antiquity’s pre-eminent philosophers, none other than Aristotle.
The announcement will come at an international conference in the northern Greece metropolis, and follows extensive excavations over 20 years at the site where Aristotle was born, in Stageira, east of Thessasloniki in the Halkidiki prefecture.
The 2,400-year-old tomb will be presented in detail, along with a monument erected in the philosopher’s honor by his fellow citizens nearly two and a half millennia ago.
Archaeologists appear confident that years of research will leave little doubt about the funereal monument that is linked, as they say, with one of the trio of ancient Greece’s supreme philosophers.
The official announcement will come from archaeology professor Costas Sismanidis, the chief archaeologist conducting excavations at the Stageira site.
The conference in Thessaloniki brings together the world’s top Aristotelian scholars – from 41 countries — on the occasion of the 2,400-year anniversary of his birth, and comes under the auspices of UNESCO.
Excavations began in 1996 at the site.
Researchers said the leaders of ancient Stageira built a monument over the tomb where the philosopher’s ashes were placed, immediately after his death in the southern Greece city-state of Halkida. Aristotle was honored as his hometown’s hero, savior, law-giver and second “founder”, given that he mediated with Philip II of the Macedon to re-build the city (340 BC), after it was razed to the ground by the same ruler nine years earlier.
