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David Grant

David Grant has a masters degree in ancient history. He is responsible for a number of international patents stemming from ideas that set out to challenge the status quo in one way or another, life experience which gave him his tenets : always challenge accepted norms, the past is never dead, and believe what you read at your peril.

Unsurprisingly, he set out to question and contest the ‘standard model’ (as he puts it) of the Macedonian king. The result is In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great. Grant explains his rationale for writing it: ‘After reading the available texts, both the ancient testimony and modern reconstructions, I was dissatisfied with conclusions drawn to date and suspicious of an opacity that ought to have been black and white.’

‘I graduated from an easy grazer of information, to an inquisitive browser of competing sources, to a chewer of contentious fat, and on to a voracious devourer of the still unexplained, in my own gradus ad Parnassum and a correspondent Masters degree with a thesis on Alexander. This book retraces the path of that ascent, and it was substantially written to answer my own questions about the man and his era. The journey took me in many unexpected directions, some oblique, but all relevant to the heart of the investigation, and all retained here.’ 

Grant now resides in London and is embarking upon his next book about Alexander’s campaigns in the Persian Empire. He is fortunate enough to be in contact with the anthropologist who heads the osteoarchaeological research at the tomb sites in ancient Macedonia, results from which are providing unique insight into their occupants, who may well include the family of Alexander the Great.

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The Problem With Labelling Alexander, The Macedonian King With A Mercurial Character

The Problem With Labelling Alexander, The Macedonian King With A Mercurial Character

‘ It is a naive belief that the distant past can be recovered from written texts, but even the written evidence for Alexander is scarce and often peculiar ,’ says Robin Lane Fox in Alexander the...
The Last Will and Testament of Alexander the Great: Its Appearance, Disappearance And Legacy

The Last Will and Testament of Alexander the Great: Its Appearance, Disappearance And Legacy

“…the uncomfortable fact remains that the Alexander Romance provides us, on occasion, with apparently genuine materials found nowhere else, while our better-authenticated sources, per contra, are all...
Detail; Byzantine Alexander Romance, Venice, 14th century.

Fact or Fiction? The Obscure Origins of the Greek Alexander Romance

The Greek Alexander Romance , often referred to as a ‘pseudo-Callisthenes’ production, is in one form or another one of the most influential and widely read books of all time; it has birthed a whole...
Remains from the funerary pyre of Philip II. (Macedonian Heritage / CC BY-SA 3.0)

Orphic Masks and Burial Rituals: Unmasking King Philip II of Macedon

That is the gods’ work, spinning threads of death through the lives of mortal men, and all to make a song for those to come. Homer The ancient Greek world was steeped in superstition and...
Battle of the Amazons by Anselm Feuerbach (1873) (Public Domain)

Amazons in the Family of Alexander the Great: Who Was the Mystery Woman Warrior?

November 8 is remembered as Archangels’ Day in Greece, but on that November day in 1977, Professor Manolis Andronikos, head of excavations, was roped down into the gloom of an unlooted Macedonian-...
Alexander on horse at the battle of Issos. Alexander Sarcophagus, Istanbul Archaeological Museum. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Herodotus’ Fish-Eating Horses and Founding Myth of the Macedon Royal Lineage

In Greece, Alexander the Great is coveted as a national hero; the cluster of royal tombs discovered in 1977 at the archaeological site of Vergina , which is thought have housed Alexander’s father,...
An ancient fresco of Macedonian soldiers from the tomb of Agios Athanasios, Thessaloniki, Greece, 4th century BC (Public Domain)

The Floating Warhorses of Alexander the Great: The Menacing Mount of the Macedonians

The rider must have a firm seat when going at full speed over all sort of ground and must also be able to use his weapons well on horseback. ( Xenophon, On Horsemanship , 8) When Philip II came to...
Alexander the Great Refuses to Take Water by Giuseppe Cades (1792)

Alexander the Great: Veterans and Settlers – Part III

Watching the fast-evolving state of affairs following Alexander’s death, the Athenian demagogue Demades compared the Macedonian army to the: “Cyclops after his one eye had been burned out, seeing its...
Alexander the Great trust to physician Phillip by Henryk Siemiradzky (1870)

Alexander the Great: Bleeding Asia Dry – Part II

A famous Roman aphorism was used well by Tacitus: “They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal; this they falsely name Empire, and when they create a desert, then they call it peace”. It is a...
A painting by Charles Le Brun (1673) depicting Alexander and Porus (Puru) during the Battle of the Hydaspes

Alexander the Great: The Economics of Upheaval – Part I

Alexander the Great has been termed a maverick whose 13-year meteoric reign was an aberration in the history of the age. He was a mythopoeic conqueror who simultaneously lived by the tenets of the...
“But In Case Anything Should Happen”: Wills and Covenants in the Age of Alexander the Great

“But In Case Anything Should Happen”: Wills and Covenants in the Age of Alexander the Great

Would kings, dictators and statesmen have used Wills in the ancient Greek world to assure successions, pass down estates and document their last wishes? ‘All will be well but in case anything should...
In Search of The Lost Testament of Alexander the Great: Excavating Homeric Heroes

In Search of The Lost Testament of Alexander the Great: Excavating Homeric Heroes

The ancient city of Aegae in Greece, where the royal tombs are located, dates back to the 7th century BCE; it became Macedonia’s first capital after it was conglomerated from a collection of villages...