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Here are Some of the Most Adventurous People that Ever Existed

Khalid Elhassan April 24, 2021 36 min

‘Augustus at the Tomb of Alexander the Great, by Lionel Royer. Pinterest

28. The Adventurous Journey of Alexander the Great’s Corpse

By the time Alexander the Great’s corpse began its journey back home, his chief generals had worked out a preliminary rough division of his empire amongst themselves. One of them, Ptolemy, ended up with Egypt as his share. He decided that the prestige of his new realm would be greatly enhanced if it hosted the body of Alexander. Specifically in the city of Alexandria, founded by and named after the great conqueror. So Ptolemy set out to hijack the great conqueror’s corpse. In 321 BC, he intercepted Alexander’s funerary procession, seized the body, and took it back to Egypt.

Ancient bust of Alexander the Great. Flickr

Ptolemy and his successors built and maintained an impressive mausoleum for Alexander in Alexandria, which became one of the city’s biggest attractions. Over the centuries, powerful figures such as Julius Caesar, Augustus, and other Roman emperors, stopped by to pay their respects. Augustus accidentally broke Alexander’s nose, while other emperors pilfered mementos from the coffin. Over time, however, interest in the mausoleum waned. In 400 AD, a visitor noted that the Alexandrines did not know where Alexander’s tomb was. In the centuries since, there were scattered reports by visitors claiming to have seen Alexander’s tomb, but nothing specific enough to allow archaeologists to pinpoint a location. As of 2021, the final resting place of Alexander the Great is one of history’s unsolved mysteries.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.