Who Owns Alexander The Great It-s A Diplomatic Minefield. - The World News May 2026

Meanwhile, a private American salvage company, Amphipolis Holdings LLC, has quietly secured exploration permits from Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities to conduct ground-penetrating radar scans beneath the modern city of Alexandria. Their spokesperson declined to comment, but a leaked investor prospectus described the potential find as “the single most valuable unclaimed archaeological asset on Earth.”

The core problem is simple, and maddening. Alexander’s final resting place—the Soma of Alexander in Alexandria, Egypt—was one of the ancient world’s most sacred pilgrimage sites. Roman emperors from Caesar to Caracalla made the trek. Then, sometime between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, history lost track. Earthquakes, rising sea levels, and the slow decay of empires erased the tomb from memory. Unlike the relatively recent discovery of Richard III under a parking lot, Alexander has remained stubbornly, magnificently, missing . Roman emperors from Caesar to Caracalla made the trek

She was not looking at North Macedonia, but at a new documentary funded by a private consortium in the Republic of North Macedonia (formerly just “Macedonia,” a name dispute that took nearly three decades to resolve). The film, The King Who Was Not Greek , marshals fringe archaeological theories suggesting Alexander’s mother, Olympias, had Illyrian (proto-Balkan) roots, and that his court spoke a now-extinct language unrelated to classical Greek. Unlike the relatively recent discovery of Richard III

Not for its gold, but for its name.

“It’s nonsense,” said Dr. Theodoros Koulianos, a professor of ancient history at the University of Athens, in an interview. “We have Plutarch, Arrian, the Alexander Romance. He sacrificed to Greek gods, consulted the Oracle at Delphi, and spread the koine Greek language. This is not interpretation. This is nationalism dressed as history.” And if found in Turkey

“Everyone wants a piece of the corpse,” said Dr. Nadia al-Hassan, a heritage lawyer based in The Hague. “But here’s the legal twist. If the tomb were found tomorrow in Egypt, under UNESCO’s 1970 convention, it would belong to Egypt. If found in international waters off Cyprus? That’s a maritime law nightmare. And if found in Turkey, near ancient Halicarnassus? Ankara has already passed a law declaring all ‘Macedonian-era artifacts’ state property.”