Category: Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great’s Tunnel?

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Interesting question over at Ask MetaFilter:

I can’t find much info about it online, the only information I can find is that he supposedly tunneled through Rosh Hanikra after having conquered Tyre, and the tunnel was large enough for him to march his entire army through.

But why is it that can no one find the tunnel? Rosh Hanikra’s site isn’t that sprawling, so wouldn’t there be some sign of it? There were apparently three tunnels that were dug centuries (and millennia later,) but if there was already an existing tunnel, why would anyone need to make new ones? (I’m obviously missing something here– could Alexander’s tunnel have filled up with debris or eroded into nothingness?)

Also where was this event first referenced as having happened?

via Alexander the Great’s lost tunnel | Ask MetaFilter.

… a couple of the responses at MetaFilter suggest they’ve never heard of this purported tunnel, and I haven’t either; links to assorted websites mentioned aren’t really useful either. Have any of rogueclassicism’s learned readers heard of this thing?

Richard Stoneman on Alexander the Great

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Richard Stoneman is the guest in a podcastish sort of thing from Australia’s ABC … not sure what the shelf life of it is:

The Little Mermaid — The Greek Version

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 1 Comment
DSC00545, Little Mermaid, Copenhagen, Denmark....
Image by lyng883 via Flickr

Folks might be aware that the ‘Little Mermaid’ from Copenhagen’s harbour is temporarily residing at the Shanghai World Expo. Some press coverage includes this little tidbit:

“Different cultures have different interpretations of the Mermaid. We have another story of the Mermaid,” said Flora Kotzia, a visitor from Greece.

According to the Greek story, the Mermaid was the sister of Alexander the Great. She was broken-hearted when Alexander died and killed herself by throwing herself into the sea. The gods pitied her and give her life again, but made her half woman and half fish. So she lived in the water and since then she had searched for her brother, asking the crews of passing ships, “Have you seen Alexander the Great?”

via The Little Mermaid — To travel is to live | Xinhua.

Hellenistic Coin Hoard from Syria

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Interesting item from the Global Arab Network:

Global Arab Network photo

A collection of Hellenistic coins dating back to the era of Alexander the Great were found near Najm Castle in the Manbej area in Aleppo governorate (northern Syria ).

The coins were found by a local man as he was preparing his land for construction, uncovering a bronze box that contained around 250 coins. He promptly delivered the coins to the authorities who in turn delivered them to Aleppo Department of Archaeology and Museum.

Director of archaeological excavations at Aleppo Department of Archaeology and Museum Yousef Kanjo said the box contained two groups of silver Hellenistic coins: 137 tetra drachma (four drachmas) coins and 115 drachma coins.

One side of the tetra drachma coins depicts Alexander the Great, while the other side depicts the Greek god Zeus sitting on a throne with an eagle on his outstretched right arm. 34 of these coins bear the inscription “King Alexander” in Greek, while 81 coins bear the inscription “Alexander” and 22 coins bear “King Phillip.”

The drachma coins bear the same images as the tetra drachma, with “Alexander” inscribed on 100 of them and “Philip” on 15 of them.

The story was picked up by the AP service and received quite a bit of coverage elsewhere; the Washington Post item has additional photos:

Bipolar Alexander?

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 1 Comment

The incipit of a piece in the Telegraph:

Clever children are almost four times more likely to suffer from the condition, which is also known as manic depression.

The latest finding, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, supports a commonly held belief that exceptional intellectual ability is associated with the mental illness.

Famous sufferers include Sir Winston Churchill, Lord Nelson, Alexander The Great, Michelangelo, Picasso, Mozart, Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Christopher Columbus.

While it seems that any list of maladies which looks for ‘historical’ sufferers is bound to include either Alexander or Caesar, this notion of a bipolar Alexander is new to me … where did this come from?

via Straight-A schoolchildren at higher risk of bipolar disorder, research claims | Telegraph.