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During their numerous conquests across much of the known world, Alexander the Great and his horse Bucephalas led the elite Macedonian cavalry. According to one legend, they even discovered Himalayan salt, famous today for its pinkish tint and its essential trace elements required by the body. The horses had worked hard in battle and on the trail and during a moment of respite licked the salt-covered rocks in the hills overlooking the Hyaspes River. This alerted the soldiers to the salt deposits there. Whether the anecdote is true or not, it speaks to the bond between horse and rider and...

The identities of the occupants of the unspoiled 4th-century BCE Royal Tombs at Vergina in northern Greece have been identified. The burials contain the remains of Alexander's father, stepmother, half-siblings, and son, along with armor and other items belonging to the man himself...The researchers examined the skeletal elements with the aid of macrophotography, radiographs, and anatomical dissection. The study authors combined osteological analyses, macro photography, X-rays, and anatomical dissections of the ancient remains with historical sources from the ancient past.A knee fusion was found in the male skeleton of Tomb I consistent with the historic evidence of the lameness of...

A new version of how the face of the legendary Greek king and army leader Alexander the Great might have been in real life is presented by Royalty Now Studios on YouTube. Researchers have often employed modern technology and historical records to try and answer the question what Alexander’s true face might have looked like, also based on numerous surviving busts of the great Greek leader who was born in 356 b.C. and died in 323 b.C.. In his short but fascinating life, Alexander created a vast empire that stretched from Greece to northwestern India and established him in the...

A team of Greek researchers has confirmed that bones found in a two-chambered royal tomb at Vergina, a town some 100 miles away from Amphipolis's mysterious burial mound, indeed belong to the Macedonian King Philip II, Alexander the Great's father. The anthropological investigation examined 350 bones and fragments found in two larnakes, or caskets, of the tomb. It uncovered pathologies, activity markers and trauma that helped identify the tomb's occupants. Along with the cremated remains of Philip II, the burial, commonly known as Tomb II, also contained the bones of a woman warrior, possibly the daughter of the Skythian King...

Anagnostis Agelarakis, Greek professor and Chair of Anthropology at Adelphi University in Long Island, New York, transported some of the remains of a wounded ancient Greek warrior from Greece to Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Medical Center, with the Greek Archeological Service’s permission... LIG radiologist Helise Coopersmith performed an X-ray on a bone fragment from the soldier, whose remains date back to more than 2,500 years. In the left ulna (a major bone in the forearm) a bronze arrowhead is embedded. It was deduced that the shaft of the arrow and part of one of its three lobes had been removed...