Introduction: A Burial Assumed, a Tomb Still Missing
The death of Alexander the Great in Babylon in 323 BC marked not only the beginning of one of the most consequential struggles over political power in the ancient world, where his generals competed for control, and Ptolemy eventually established his rule over Egypt, but also it marked one of the most famous archeological mysteries in ancient history, raising the question of what actually happened to Alexander’s body after his death? [1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 15]
The conventional historical narrative holds that Alexander’s body was transported from Babylon to Egypt and eventually buried in Alexandria, the city he had founded during his conquest of Egypt. Ancient writers describe a magnificent funeral carriage, Ptolemy’s acquisition of the body, and a royal burial in Alexandria. Later accounts also refer to a tomb associated with Alexander in the city. [5, 6, 7, 15]
Nevertheless, the physical location of Alexander’s tomb has never been established, and no archaeological discovery has conclusively identified his remains. [15]
This absence raises a fundamental question: Are we searching for a missing tomb whose existence and location are securely established, or are we also dealing with a historical narrative whose essential claims require further examination?
This article examines the historical circumstances surrounding Alexander’s death, the competing accounts of his body’s movements, the evidence concerning the funeral carriage, and the possible political motivations behind the tradition associating his remains with Alexandria in Egypt. [4, 14]
It proposes an alternative hypothesis: that the fate of Alexander’s body may have differed from the conventional narrative. These possibilities remain hypotheses, not established conclusions, but they deserve examination alongside the traditional account.
1. Alexander’s Conquests and the Foundation of Alexandria
Alexander’s career was defined by extraordinary geographical expansion. In 332 BC, Alexander entered Egypt. During his stay, he founded Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast. He then continued eastward, advancing into Babylon, Susa, Persepolis, and other major centers. He established or renamed settlements in several regions, and numerous cities across the territories associated with his conquests became known as Alexandrias. [2, 13]
The existence of multiple cities called Alexandrias is relevant to the present investigation. The Egyptian Alexandria was undoubtedly one of Alexander’s most important foundations. Nevertheless, the city’s significance does not independently establish that Alexander intended it to become his final burial place. [2, 13]
Alexander’s connection to Egypt was one episode in a much broader imperial project. He conquered territories with different religious traditions, political institutions, and burial customs. His brief stay in Egypt does not, on its own, demonstrate that he adopted Egyptian funerary practices for his own body. [9, 10]
2. Alexander’s Marriages and His Final Years
Alexander’s personal and political relationships also extended across the territories he conquered.
During his campaigns in Central Asia, he married Roxana, the daughter of the Bactrian nobleman Oxyartes. He also married Stateira, the daughter of Darius III, and Parysatis, the daughter of Artaxerxes III. [3]
These marriages reflected his efforts to incorporate conquered elites into a broader imperial structure. They also demonstrate that his political future was increasingly connected to the eastern territories of his empire. By the final period of his life, Babylon had become a major center of his operations. [1, 4]
Alexander died there in June 323 BC, his death leaving a succession crisis. The empire did not remain unified under a single successor. Instead, the struggle for control produced a series of divisions and conflicts. [1]
The fate of Alexander’s body must therefore be examined within this political context. His remains were not merely a private funerary concern. The possession of his body, the location of his burial, and the interpretation of his legacy could all carry political significance. [4, 14]
3. What Happened to Alexander’s Body?
The ancient sources do not provide a single, fully consistent account of Alexander’s body after his death.
Diodorus Siculus, writing in the first century BC, describes the construction of an elaborate funeral carriage and the transportation of Alexander’s body from Babylon toward Egypt. According to his account, Ptolemy met the procession in Syria and subsequently arranged for the body to be buried in Alexandria. [5]
Strabo, writing around the turn of the first century AD, also associates Alexander’s body with Alexandria. He states that Ptolemy took the body while it was being transported from Babylon and deposited it in the Egyptian city. [6]
Pausanias, writing in the second century AD, presents a different account. He says that Ptolemy persuaded the Macedonians entrusted with carrying Alexander’s body to Aegae in Macedon to hand it over to him. Pausanias then states that Ptolemy buried the body at Memphis according to Macedonian custom. [7]
These accounts cannot simply be treated as interchangeable descriptions of one securely documented sequence of events.
Diodorus and Strabo associate the burial with Alexandria, while Pausanias places an earlier burial at Memphis. Pausanias also describes a projected destination in Macedon.
What we could establish is that the ancient literary tradition contains variations that require historical analysis .A further limitation is chronological closeness, where the detailed accounts available to us were written at various times long after Alexander’s death, which could have been subject to distortion. The challenge is therefore to distinguish information that can be independently corroborated from details transmitted through later historical traditions. [5, 6, 7]
4. Alexander’s Funerary Customs: Macedonian Traditions versus Egyptian Rituals?
One question that deserves closer examination is why Alexander the Great’s death is so frequently associated with Egyptian funerary traditions. The assumption that his body was transported to Egypt, embalmed according to Egyptian practices, and placed in an elaborate coffin rests on a series of claims that should be examined separately rather than treated as a single, established historical fact.
Alexander was a Macedonian king who spent most of his final years campaigning. His stay in Egypt was relatively brief, beginning with his conquest of the country in 332 BC and ending with his departure the following year. He subsequently continued his campaigns across the Persian Empire and into Central Asia, and he died in Babylon in 323 BC. [1, 2]
Against this background, I find it difficult to understand why Egyptian funerary practices should automatically be assumed to have governed the treatment of his body after death. Alexander’s conquest of Egypt does not, in itself, demonstrate that he adopted Egyptian religious beliefs or funerary customs for his own burial.
On the other hand, the archaeological record demonstrates that funerary practices in ancient Macedon included both cremation and burial without cremation. These practices differed in important respects from the distinctive mummification traditions developed in ancient Egypt. [9]
The royal tombs at Vergina, for example, demonstrate the sophistication and diversity of Macedonian funerary practices. Some burials included cremated remains preserved in elaborate metal vessels, while other graves contained different forms of burial equipment and human remains. [9]
The material evidence for Macedonian funerary customs also cannot establish how Alexander himself was treated after death. Royal individuals could receive exceptional funerary arrangements, especially when their political and religious status differed from that of ordinary members of their society.
Nevertheless ,The surviving literary accounts do not provide a sufficiently detailed description of Alexander’s bodily preparation to establish whether he was mummified according to Egyptian customs or not. The reports of a gold coffin and a subsequent container made from another material do not independently establish that the body was embalmed, nor do they explain the precise method by which it was preserved. [5, 6]
My interpretation begins with this gap in the evidence. Rather than assuming that Alexander’s body was treated according to Egyptian funerary traditions, I propose that the possibility of a different funerary procedure should be considered, including the possibility that his body was cremated in accordance with practices known in the Macedonian world.
A related question concerns the role of Ptolemy and his successors. Ptolemy became governor of Egypt following Alexander’s death in 323 BC and later assumed the royal title, conventionally dated to 305/304 BC. So , he ruled an independent kingdom whose legitimacy could benefit from an association with Alexander’s legacy. [4]
If Alexander’s body was genuinely brought to Egypt, its presence in Alexandria could have provided Ptolemy with a powerful symbol of political continuity. If, however, the precise circumstances of the body’s transfer and burial were uncertain, later rulers could also have benefited from the promotion of a tradition associating Alexander with their capital.
My hypothesis is that Alexander’s Macedonian identity and the funerary traditions associated with his cultural background should be treated as the starting point for the investigation, rather than assuming that Egyptian practices were necessarily applied to his body. Until direct archaeological evidence or a more conclusive contemporary account becomes available, the possibility that Alexander’s body underwent a different funerary procedure—including cremation—should remain open to investigation. [9]
5. Mummification: An Egyptian Tradition or a Practice Adopted by Foreign Ruler
A further issue concerns the assumption that Alexander’s body was mummified according to Egyptian tradition. In my view, this assumption requires independent evidence rather than being inferred from the claim that his body was transported to Egypt.
Mummification was deeply embedded in ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and funerary practices. It was associated with Egyptian understandings of death, bodily preservation, and existence in the afterlife. During the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, these traditions continued to be practiced in Egypt, although their methods, materials, and accompanying rituals changed over time. [10, 12]
The survival of mummification under foreign political rule, however, should not automatically be interpreted as evidence that the foreign ruling dynasties themselves adopted the practice for their own burials.
The archaeological record has produced numerous mummies from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, but at the same time there is no securely identified mummy of a Ptolemaic king established in terms of a documented royal burial. Nor does the evidence establish a general practice of Roman emperors being mummified in Egypt. [10, 11, 15]
This distinction is central to my argument. The continuation of Egyptian mummification under the Ptolemies and Romans demonstrates the persistence of Egyptian funerary traditions within Egyptian society. It does not, by itself, demonstrate that foreign rulers adopted those traditions for their own bodies. [10, 11]
I therefore question the assumption that Alexander must have been mummified simply because later accounts associate his body with Egypt. Alexander was a Macedonian king, and the funerary traditions of his cultural background provide an essential point of comparison. Unless evidence can establish that his body was deliberately subjected to Egyptian embalming practices, mummification should remain a possibility to be investigated rather than a fact presumed in advance. [5, 6]
6. Embalming and the Problem of Preserving the Body
Also the question of embalming is closely related to the reported interval between Alexander’s death and the transportation of his body. Ancient Egypt developed sophisticated methods of preserving the dead, and mummification continued in different forms during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. [10, 12]
Likewise, the reported duration of the carriage’s construction does not prove that embalming occurred. From the perspective of the alternative hypothesis advanced here, the lack of a clear account of how the body was preserved for a period of years, which Diodorus associates with the preparation of the carriage, although he does not fully explain the body’s preservation during that period, is significant. If the body was transported to Egypt after a prolonged period, the absence of a documented preservation procedure leaves an important gap in the reconstruction. [5] [5]
One possibility is that the body was embalmed, although the surviving descriptions do not explain how. A further possibility, if the body was cremated, is that the assumption of an intact body arriving in Egypt would itself be incorrect. [5]
7. The Funeral Carriage: A Vehicle for Burial or Something Else?
One of the most striking elements of the traditional narrative is the magnificent carriage associated with Alexander’s body.
Diodorus describes an elaborate structure that attracted large crowds as it passed through cities. He states that Arrhidaeus, who had been entrusted with the transportation of the body, spent nearly two years on the construction works before transporting the king’s body from Babylon to Egypt. [5]
The surviving reference is important, but its wording deserves close attention. Athenaeus identifies the subject as a carriage built to convey Alexander’s body. He does not, in this passage, provide a detailed account of its final destination, describe the condition of the body, or explain the purpose of every component of the structure. [8]
The conventional interpretation treats it as a vehicle carrying the body toward burial. Diodorus explicitly presents the journey to Egypt in this way, and Athenaeus’s wording has traditionally been understood in a similar funerary context. [5, 8]
An alternative hypothesis is that the carriage, or a structure described in a related account, may have been connected with a cremation ceremony rather than exclusively with the transportation of an intact body to a permanent tomb.
Under this hypothesis, the body might have been cremated and the carriage or associated structure might have formed part of the funerary procedure. If that occurred, the assumption that the body necessarily arrived in Egypt intact would require reconsideration.
8. Could the Alexandrian Burial Tradition Have Served a Political Purpose?
Following Alexander’s death, his commanders negotiated the distribution of responsibilities and territories. Ptolemy secured the governorship of Egypt and gradually established an independent power base there. [4]
Egypt offered substantial strategic advantages. Its agricultural resources, revenues, Mediterranean coastline, and defensible geographical position made it an important center of power in the conflicts among Alexander’s successors.
The political context surrounding Ptolemy’s rise provides another reason to examine the traditional narrative critically.
Ptolemy established his power in Egypt during the conflicts that followed Alexander’s death. His dynasty subsequently developed a royal ideology that associated its rule with the founder of the empire from which it had emerged. [4, 14]
The possession of Alexander’s body, if it occurred as described, would have offered a powerful symbolic resource. It could connect the Ptolemaic ruler to Alexander’s memory and associate Alexandria with the legitimacy of the new dynasty.
This possibility raises an important historical question: did the political significance of the Alexandrian burial tradition emerge from an actual transfer of Alexander’s body, or could the tradition have been promoted by later Ptolemies?
The hypothesis proposed here is that the association between Alexander’s remains and Alexandria may have acquired additional political meaning after Ptolemy’s initial establishment of power. It is also possible that later generations consolidated or reshaped an earlier tradition to reinforce the legitimacy of the Ptolemaic dynasty. [14]
This is a question for historical investigation, not a conclusion that can be treated as established fact.
Conclusion: Reopening the Question of Alexander’s Final Resting Place
Alexander the Great’s death is historically well established. His death in Babylon in 323 BC, the subsequent struggles among his generals, and the division of his empire are supported by a substantial body of ancient evidence. [1, 4]
The fate of his body is a different matter.
The surviving sources provide accounts of a funeral carriage, a journey from Babylon, Ptolemy’s acquisition of the body, and a burial associated with Alexandria. Yet the accounts were written at different times, do not agree on every detail, and do not provide a complete, independently corroborated reconstruction of the body’s movements and treatment. [5, 6, 7]
The evidence concerning embalming is inconclusive. The descriptions of the coffins do not establish the precise condition or identity of the remains. The reported period of the preparation of the body raises questions about preservation that the surviving narrative does not answer. [5, 6, 10]
The political circumstances surrounding Ptolemy’s rise also make it reasonable to examine whether the tradition of an Alexandrian burial acquired additional significance under the Ptolemaic dynasty. [4, 14]
The alternative hypothesis considered here is that Alexander’s body may not have been buried in Alexandria as traditionally believed. It may have undergone a different funerary procedure, possibly involving cremation. [5, 6, 7]
At present, the evidence does not establish which alternative, if any, is correct.
The purpose of this argument is not to replace one unproven certainty with another. It is to distinguish what the sources actually state and until that gap is resolved, the question should remain open.
Therefore, did Alexander the Great truly rest in a tomb in Alexandria, or has the traditional narrative led generations of researchers to search for a burial whose historical details remain less certain than is commonly assumed?
Cover Image, Top: Tomb of Alexander; painting by Gustave-Claude-Etienne Courtois, Musée Jean-Léon Gérôme, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
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References and Primary Sources
Numbered citations in the text refer to the sources below. Ancient works are cited by book and section.
[1] Arrian. Anabasis of Alexander, 7.24–27 (Alexander’s final illness and death in Babylon). Livius.org: https://www.livius.org/sources/content/arrian/anabasis/the-death-of-alexander/
[2] Encyclopaedia Iranica. “Alexandria: General Designation of Cities Whose Foundation Is Credited to Alexander the Great.” https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/alexandria-general-designation-of-cities-whose-foundation-is-credited-to-alexander-the-great-356-23-b/
[3] Encyclopaedia Iranica. “Stateira.” On Alexander’s marriage to Stateira and the Susa marriage ceremony. https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/stateira/
[4] Oxford Classical Dictionary. “Ptolemy I Soter.” Oxford Academic: https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/61673/chapter-abstract/550492830
[5] Diodorus Siculus. Library of History, Book 18, chapters 26–28. Translation at LacusCurtius: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/diodorus_siculus/18b%2A.html
[6] Strabo. Geography, 17.1.8. Translation at Perseus Digital Library: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Strab.+17.1&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0239
[7] Pausanias. Description of Greece, 1.6.3. Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University: https://chs.harvard.edu/primary-source/a-pausanias-reader-in-progress-description-of-greece-scrolls-1-10/
[8] Athenaeus. Deipnosophistae, 5.203E–204A (reference to Hieronymus of Cardia’s account of the carriage built to convey Alexander’s body). Translation at LacusCurtius: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Athenaeus/5C%2A.html
[9] Musgrave, Jonathan. “Dust and Damn’d Oblivion: A Study of Cremation in Ancient Greece.” The Annual of the British School at Athens 85 (1990): 271–299. Cambridge University Press: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/annual-of-the-british-school-at-athens/article/abs/dust-and-damnd-oblivion-a-study-of-cremation-in-ancient-greece/D7D297C9B17BC1B7641E15DC3BF359DA
[10] Riggs, Christina. “Funerary Rituals (Ptolemaic and Roman Periods).” UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (2010). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1n10x347
[11] Stadler, Martin Andreas. “Funerary Religion: The Final Phase of an Egyptian Tradition.” In The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt, edited by Christina Riggs, 383–397. Oxford University Press, 2012. https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/28112/chapter-abstract/212253029
[12] The British Museum. “Ancient Egyptian Mummification.” Educational resource on Egyptian beliefs and mummification practices. https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2025-08/Ancient_Egyptian_mummification_Visit_Resource.pdf
[13] Fraser, P. M. Cities of Alexander the Great. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. Oxford Academic: https://academic.oup.com/book/47006
[14] Krasilnikoff, Jens A. “Alexandria as Place: Tempo-Spatial Traits of Royal Ideology in Early Ptolemaic Egypt.” In Alexandria: A Cultural and Religious Melting Pot. JSTOR: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/jj.35529218.4
[15] Roos, Dave. “Why Cleopatra’s Tomb Has Never Been Found.” HISTORY, May 7, 2026. Used here for the reported archaeological status of https://www.history.com/articles/cleopatrastoPtolemaic royal tombs; verify this claim against specialist archaeological publications before submission
After the Penn Museum conversation, I met Myers beside a table stacked with books. She had stepped down from the stage, and the formal arrangement of interviewer, audience and author disappeared almost immediately.
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