With his arrival in 2024, he opened a door to the very long past, which citizens can now walk through and reach back up to 2300 years. On the elevated part of the Vergina slope, “pilgrims of history” will now be able to take a guided tour in the Palace of Philip II in Aigeswhich is inaugurated today by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and from next Sunday it will be open to the public.

After 16 years of restoration, maintenance, fixing, restoration, excavation and documentation of the enormous technical work, the largest building seen in classical antiquity, what Professor Wolfram Hoepfner had described as the “Macedonian Parthenon” and in in which the Parthenon fits three times, again referring to its original image.

The most brilliant building of Macedonia, opens its gates to the world to remind some of its glorious moments:

Its erection in the middle of the 4th BC. century from Philip II in order to define the image of the new world… “I the ruler and my people coexist in this building, the palace of the Goats”, he had characteristically said, justifying the idea that led him to create the city and the palace.

There he organized and reformed the Macedonian kingdom and prepared the ground for what happened next with his son Alexander, who created the world.

Alexander the Great was proclaimed king there in 336 BC, after his father was assassinated. The same columns that the visitor sees today, are the ones that “heard” the Macedonians triumphantly striking their shields with their spears, as they rhythmically called out his name.

Starting from the same point, just two years later, was the beginning of the campaign of Alexander the Great to the depths of the East, where together with the tens of thousands of hoplites and horsemen, they carried with them to the edge of the world the image of classical Greece, of Macedonia , of the Goats.

In the middle of the 2nd pre-Christian century, the palace was exemplarily destroyed, after the final destruction of the kingdom by the Romans of Metellus, in 148 BC.

What remained of the stone-cutting, which continued for centuries, was revealed by excavation that began in 1865 and continued in the 20th century, the 1930s and the 1950s-1960s. Today’s inauguration marks the “resurrection” of the monument.

“The largest monument in Greece, occupying 15,000 sq.m. and together with its surrounding area it reaches 25,000 square meters, in essence it did not exist”, recently stated in an interview with SKAI 100.3 the Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni, explaining that until 2007 when the restoration of the of a particular monument, nothing was visible. “In other words, we did not have a monument that was partially preserved in its third dimension. It was a monument that had its members scattered in a large radius around its basic core, but it was actually flat,” he said.

Archaeologist Angeliki Kottaridis, head of the Antiquities Ephorate of Imathia until the end of 2023, is the one who will give the prime minister a tour. She herself leaves behind a great work in the royal capital of the Macedonians, Aiges. Now the visitor can take a guided tour of the Museum of Goats, taking a first step into the history of Macedonia and the world of Alexander the Great. Then he can see the royal tombs, an entire necropolis of 500 acres with 540 mounds. While in addition, from now on he will be able to visit Philip’s palace to fully understand the atmosphere of antiquity.

“The palace is not a home, it never was a home. It is the center of political, religious, judicial and military power of Philip II. He took the institutions of the cities of the south, namely the self-governing city with Parliament and Municipality, and grafted them onto the idea of ​​the kingdom. Thus, he began to create cities in which people gathered and lots were granted”, Angeliki Kottaridis previously told APE-MPE.

“A simple and functional building and at the same time monumental and imposing, the archetypal edifice is characterized by the luxury of materials, the ingenuity and perfection of execution, the unexpected achievements of technology and, at the same time, by the geometric purity of the form that forms an ensemble of incomparable tranquility , elegance and harmony, where everything is subordinated to the charm of measure”, is stated in a statement from the Ministry of Culture.

“With the monumental propylon, which evokes a sanctuary, the impressive two-story porticos of the facade that open onto the city and invite citizens to make use of their space, the mega peristyle, around which the banquet areas are organized, the dome that according to with the inscriptions it was a sanctuary of the Patronus Herakles, the library/archive and the smaller western peristyle that served auxiliary uses (palaestra etc.) the “kingdom” foundation of the Goats housed all those structures that were necessary for the exercise of multi-level public authority. With 16 Doric columns on each side, the mega peristyle of the Goats, which epitomizes the concept of the square, is the first of its kind. Having an area of ​​4,000 square meters, it could accommodate at least 8,000 people and could function as a gathering place for Macedonians. The gathering place of the citizens takes on the image of a courtyard and the word “courtyard” becomes synonymous with the concept of royalty,” the announcement continues.

The project of maintenance, fixing, restoration and restoration of the monument carried out by the competent Ephorate of Antiquities of Imathia under its own supervision. It lasted from 2007 to 2023 as a co-financed project of successive European programs, with a total budget of 20,300,000 euros.

Scientifically and administratively responsible for the project in all phases was Dr. Angeliki Kottaridis, archaeologist and supervisors of the final phase were: Olympia Felekidou, civil engineer-restorer, Kiki Kyrittopoulou, architect, Eva Kontogoulidou, archaeologist, Costas Tzimboulas, antiquities conservator, George Konstantinopoulos, craftsman. The number of IDOH employees ranged from 70-160.