GREECE MACEDONIA EMATHIA VERGINA TOWN

The small town of Vergina in central Macedonia is the site of ancient Aigai, the "city of goats" (aíks = "goat"). According to Diodorus Siculus it received this name by Perdikkas I, who fled from Argos around 650 BC and was advised by the Pythian priestess to build the capital city of his kingdom where goats led him. But still, Aigai remained a small town, most of the population living in surrounding villages. Towards the end of the 5th century, the royal court of Aigai attracted artists, poets, and philosophers from all over the Greek world, but at the beginning of the 4th cntury BC the Macedonian capital was transferred north-east to Pella. Aigai retained its role as the sacred city of the Macedonians, the site of traditional cult centres, of a royal palace and the royal tombs.

Burial mounds around Vergina have been notice by archaeologists since the 1850's. In 1861, the French archaeologist Leon Heuzey began excavations and unearthed parts of a large building, but the work was abandoned because of the risk of malaria. In 1937, the University of Thessaloniki resumed the excavations and found more ruins of the ancient site, but the excavations were abandoned on the outbreak of war with Italy in 1940. After the war the excavations were resumed during the 1950s and 1960s. The Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos became convinced that a hill called the 'Great Tumulus' contained the tombs of the Macedonian kings. During a six-week dig in 1977, he found four buried tombs there, two of which had never been disturbed, and identified one of the tombs as that of Philip II, father of Alexander the Great.

The modern town of Vergina is quite tourist-oriented, but you can find quiet shady cafés to enjoy a cool drink or some food to prepare you for the further exploration of the formidable sites.

Ancient sites of Vergina:

1. Royal tumulus

2. Royal Burial Cluster of the Temenids

3. Burial Cluster of the Queens

4. Sanctuary of Eukleia

5. Theatre

6. Palace

7. Tumulus Cemetery

8. Burial Clusters of Heuzey and Bella

Aigai has been included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites as "an exceptional testimony to a significant development in European civilization, at the transition from classical city-state to the imperial structure of the Hellenistic and Roman periods".