Greek researchers discover remains of Alexander the Great's father

Thessaloniki, Greece: A team of Greek researchers claimed to have discovered the remains of Macedonian King Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great.

The cremated ancient bones were found in a royal tomb in northern Vergina, a town some 100 miles away from Amphipolis's mysterious burial mound in Greece.

Along with the cremated remains of Philip II, the tomb, called Tomb II also contained the bones of a warrior woman. Theodore Antikas, head of the Art-Anthropological research team of the Vergina excavation suggests that she may have been the daughter of Scythian King Ateas.

The anthropological investigation examined 350 bones and fragments discovered in two caskets of the tomb.

According to Antikas, the identification of the middle-aged, male skeleton was based upon marks on the bones. “The individual suffered from frontal and maxillary sinusitis that might have been caused by an old facial trauma,” he told Discovery News.

Philip II was blinded when his right eye was hit with an arrow during the siege of Methone in 354 B.C. “He had signs of chronic pathology on the visceral surface of several low thoracic ribs, indicating pleuritis,” Antikas added.

He said that the skeleton also showed signs of frequent horseback riding.

If the finding by Antikas' team is true, it will help scholars settle a debate which they have argued ever since Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos discovered the tomb in 1977-78.

The findings will be announced on Friday at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki.

The tomb of Alexander the Great, who died in Babylon in present-day Iraq at age 32, in 323 BC, is yet to be identifued.