By Vaso Veggiri

 

The palace of ancient king Philip II of Macedonia was open to the public after the completion of the long-term restoration carried out by the Ministry of Culture.

 

As announced by the minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni, in her statements to the international media, today the Prime Minister will inaugurate the restored palace of Philip II, in Aiges, which the scholar of ancient architecture Wolfram Hoepfner called the "Macedonian Parthenon".

 

"It is the palace in which Alexander the Great was crowned king of the Macedonians. A building impressive both in its magnificence and in size, a unique monument, which in combination with the Museum that we inaugurated a year ago, together with the cultural wealth of the Aigai, creates a strong cultural pole for our homeland and a major development resource for Macedonia, Lina Mendoni said. 

 

 

The palace, built in the middle of the 4th c. BC, by Philip II, the "royal foundation" of Aigai, the largest building in classical Greece, was designed to combine the Agora, the meeting place of the citizens of the Macedonian Metropolis, with the royal presence and authority . In the great peristyle of the palace, in the fall of 336 BC, Alexander was proclaimed king of the Macedonians and the great march that transformed the world at that time into Ecumene began.

 

The palace of the Goats, an absolutely innovative building for its time, became a model and an archetype, experienced thousands of iterations, defining, for many centuries, the image of public architecture, in the East and the West.

 

 

A symbol of Macedonian hegemony, the monument was destroyed by the Romans in 148 BC, burned and stoned to disappear from the face of the earth. Now, as its restoration draws to a close, it harkens back to its original image.

 

Visitors to the archaeological site of Aige, will be able to have a vivid image of "the Parthenon of Macedonia" - as Wolfram Hoepfner, one of the greatest scholars of ancient Greek architecture, described the monument - which with much effort, persistence and patience emerges from the oblivion of the ages.

 

A part, 30m long, of the upper floor of the central part of the palace facade, whose restoration in the monument was not possible for structural reasons, as the intermediate ancient material was not saved, is exhibited in the Central Museum Building.