Tea at Trianon: Tomb of Alexander the Great

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Tomb of Alexander the Great

From Ancient Origins:

In 2004, scientist and author Dr Andrew Michael Chugg wrote The Lost Tomb of Alexander the Great in which he explained how Alexander the Great’s tomb was initially located near Memphis at the Serapeum complex in Egypt where a temple was built by the last native pharaoh of Egypt, Nectanebo II .

Oddly, this temple entrance was guarded by sculptures of Greek poets and philosophers, including Pindar, Homer and Plato, all of whom are associated with Alexander the Great. The 2004 book made the point that the temple of Nectanebo II at the Serapeum, guarded by Greek statues, is the obvious candidate for an initial tomb of Alexander. Now, Chugg claims, the match of the piece of tomb from Venice for the sarcophagus of Nectanebo II in London shows it was used to entomb Alexander at Memphis.

Alexander’s body disappeared when the Roman emperor banned pagan worship in AD 392 and a tomb of St Mark appeared at the same time in what was previously a region occupied by Alexander’s tomb.

In a 2011 episode of the National Geographic Channel television series Mystery Files , Andrew Chugg claimed that Alexander the Great's body had been stolen from Alexandria, Egypt, by Venetian merchants who mistook it for that of Saint Mark the Evangelist . When they smuggled the remains to Venice, the remains soon after became venerated as Saint Mark the Evangelist in the Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco.

According to Mr Chugg, the shocking inference following his new evidence is that the remains of St Mark the Evangelist within a coffin in the high altar in St Mark ’s in Venice might be that of Alexander the Great. (Read more.)

From The Vintage News:

According to ancient reports, the king’s body was first buried in Memphis, Egypt, and then moved to Alexandria. After his death, many believed Alexander was a god and came to worship at his tomb. There is a reference to Alexander’s body being moved to Alexandria around 280 BC. Also mentioned is a memorial building constructed to house the body. Alexander had proclaimed himself Pharaoh of Egypt while alive. Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian in the first century BC, wrote that Alexander’s body was mummified in ancient Egyptian style. The body was then placed in a gold sarcophagus. (Read more.)

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