It was mid-December 2011 when I was contacted by the editorial team of Current World Archaeology international discoveries magazine, asked to contribute with some of PaulaTrendsets’ pictures to an article about ancient Macedon. The magazine wanted to use pictures from Ashmolean Museum’s exhibition of royal jewelry found in Aegae.
Of course first of all, I would like to stress out that it has been an honor for me to contribute and be credited by such an internationally acclaimed scientific magazine, and I would like to personally thank the Editorial Assistant Carly Hilts for the perfect collaboration and communication process.
Although, the main reason why I was so willing to send the pictures and assist the publication of this particular article in any way possible, was because of the ongoing dispute over the claim of Skopje to name their country after Macedon, the ancient Hellenic kingdom of Alexander the Great. The dispute is an open wound to all Greeks, and articles like this, published in Current World Archaeology February/March 2012 issue, help to remind the world that history is only written once and cannot be erased and rewritten, no matter which or how many politicians want it to.
It is no coincidence that in 2011, two of the most acclaimed museums in Europe, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and Le Louvre in Paris, have hosted exhibitions with Macedonian archaeological findings from Greece, clearly underlining the historically indisputable Hellenic identity of the ancient Macedonian kingdom. The title itself of the exhibition in Ashmolean was a slap to the Skopjan claims: “Treasures from the royal capital of Macedon, a Hellenic kingdom in the age of Democracy”. Adding to the scientifically acknowledged exhibitions and the historians’ many studies on the subject, the article of Current World Archaeology, even though with no intention to enter the conversation, repeats on its own right to a global readership the undoubted historical truth about the Hellenic origin of Alexander the Great -whose name, by the way, derives from pure Greek etymology, meaning “the one who stems (fights back) men”.
I will once more cite the phrase of historian Robin Lane Fox at the opening day of the exhibition in Oxford, that “whoever claims Skopje is Macedonia, knows nothing about History – it is the same as claiming Oxford is in Belarus”. Despite all the above, the government of Skopje keeps its provocative attitude not only insisting on its claims, but also building a huge -not to mention inelegant- statue of Alexander in the very centre of their capital. This must be their way to prove historical evidence.
To conclude, I doubt that modern political maneuvers or funny cultural concoctions are able to overrun History and scientific proof.
Not for long.
