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A team of archaeologists, biologists, chemists and historians affiliated with several institutions in Europe and the U.K. has found evidence that the remains found in the Tomb of Persephone, in the Great Tumulus of Vergina, are not those of Philip II of Macedon, as previously thought. In their paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science, the group describes their study of the remains found in the tomb.

In 1977, researchers discovered the Great Tumulus of Vergina in northern Greece. The original find turned out to be a series of tombs, all of which were created to entomb members of the Argead Dynasty—the family who created the Kingdom of Macedonia.

After much research and debate, some historians decided that one of the tombs, known as the Tomb of Persephone, held the remains of Philip II of Macedon—Alexander the Great's father, along with his wife, Cleopatra, and their newly born son. Some speculate that all three were murdered at the behest of Phillip's ex-wife, who wanted her son to take over the throne sooner rather than later.

In this new effort, the research team has taken a fresh look at the remains. Using a variety of tools and techniques, including radiocarbon dating and isotopic analysis, the researchers found that the male remains were those of a man between the ages of 25 and 35 at death, and were definitively not those of Philip II. They also ruled out the female remains as Philip's wife.

They found that the other bones in the tomb were from multiple infants, as many as six, and that they had all been placed in the tomb centuries after those of the two adult victims, ruling out the possibility of any of them being their offspring. The identities of the people buried in the tomb thus remain unknown, though they may've been high-status members of society.