Such Disrespect! First Used as a Building Material and Then Lost in a Warehouse, an Ancient Bust of Alexander the Great Is Found

Greek archaeologists have announced the discovery of a rare and
ancient bust of Alexander the Great—and all they had to do was look
through the unexplored corners of the storage in one of their own
museums. Forgotten for decades, the sculpture is believed to date
from the second century BCE, or about 200 years after Alexander’s
death in 323 BCE.

The marble statue was spotted amid crates of ceramics in a “lost
in a dark corner of the warehouse” of the Archaeological Museum of Veroia in
Macedonia, Greece. The find was revealed by the institution’s
director, Angeliki Kottarid, on Facebook, who touted it
as a “‘brand new’ Portrait of Alexander, still unknown to
archaeologists and art lovers.” Kottarid also serves as
director of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

Alexander the Great continues to capture the imagination even to
this day. The Macedonian ruler conquered large swathes of Asia and
north Africa, consolidating a massive empire through an
unprecedented military campaign before his death at just 32. The
discovery in 2018 of a massive granite
sarcophagus in Egypt led to widespread speculation that
archaeologists had at last discovered Alexander’s final resting
place, but instead proved to hold evidence of ancient brain
surgery.

At the Veroia museum, Alexander’s likeness was a little bit the
worse for wear, having been used as a building material in the
Greek town where it was originally discovered amid some rubble.
Nevertheless, Kottarid was able to identify the figure as the
legendary Alexander when she took a fresh look at the bust.

“I saw him… despite the wounds left on his beautiful face by the
ages and ignorance,” she wrote, telling Athens-Macedonian News
Agency that the artwork is one of only three known ancient
portraits of Alexander in the Macedonia region.

The more than 2,000-year-old statue, which has since been
cleaned and restored, is due to go on display at the archaeological
site of Aigai, at the Museum of the Macedonian Royal Tombs in
Vergina, Greece, where Kottaridi is also director, at the end
of 2020.

The post Such Disrespect! First Used as a Building Material
and Then Lost in a Warehouse, an Ancient Bust of Alexander the
Great Is Found appeared first on artnet News.