What is so significant about knowing the location of Aristotle's tomb?

by TurnUpForNothin

Do you guys think this will prove to be a significant discovery, or do you think it's been blown out of proportion?

mythoplokos

Yeah sorry, I don't think they've found Aristotle's tomb. I'm not an archaeologist nor has Kostas Sismanidis, the guy behind the 'discovery', released any archaeological reports so obviously I cannot judge for sure nor provide a very detailed post here. So, all I can offer you are the reasons for my deep skepticism. Firstly, although Stageira was Aristotle's hometown, he actually died in Chalcis, Euboea in 322 BC. Secondly, Sismanidis says that he is drawing from 'literary sources' to prove that the tomb is in fact Aristotle's tomb - which in itself is a bit of a dubious way to do archaeology in most cases. And, the sources that I imagine he could be drawing from are either the small cluster of inaccurate and idealistic neo-Platonic Lives of Aristotle that are written in the 4th and 5th centuries AD, i.e. 700 years after Aristotle's death, that mention his tomb in Stageira (this article talks you through them if you're really into manuscripts); or, then he might be talking about the medieval sources of previous 'discoveries' of Aristotle's tomb, such as John Mandeville’s (1499) Travels. Edith Hall (a well respected classicist) analyses here the ludicrousness of using these sources concisely enough so there's not really any point for me to repeat it here. I mean, you're gonna want to open that link anyway and see just how much that High Medieval - style tomb and sculpture he provides a drawing of looks like a tomb from 300s BC......

And, as Edith Hall notes, it seems just too much of a coincidence that Aristotle's tomb would surface on the 2,400th anniversary of his birth.