Aigai

About

Aegae or Aigai (Ancient Greek: Αἰγαί) was the original capital of Macedon, the ancient Greek kingdom of the Argead Makedones in Lower Macedonia, in northern Greece. The site is located on the foothills of the Pierian Mountains, between the modern towns of Vergina and Palatitsia, and overlooks the central Macedonian Plain. The city was abandoned in the 3rd century and was rediscovered in the 19th.

Three major archaeological missions have been carried out at Aegae. The first was led by Léon Heuzey of the French School at Athens in the 1860s; Manolis Andronikos led excavations over a century later and made many important discoveries, including the tomb of Philip II and the Golden Larnax bearing the Vergina Sun; and Angeliki Kottaridi led restoration efforts in the 2000s. Today it is the site of an archaeological site and two museums.

Prior to the discoveries at Vergina, Edessa was thought to be the site of Aegae. The early Macedonian conceptualisation of the state was that of a typical ancient Greek city-state (Polis), with Aegae as an urban centre (ἄστυ) ruling over the surrounding countryside (χώρα), no different than Athens ruling over Attica or Sparta over Lacedaemon; whether this...