Archaeologists in northern Greece have uncovered richly decorated halls at Mieza, the royal complex where Aristotle is thought to have tutored a teenage Alexander the Great, Smithsonian Magazine reports. The three-year dig, led by veteran archaeologist Angeliki Kottaridi of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, has exposed a teaching space, or didaskaleion, along with two banquet halls laid with intricate mosaic floors.
Among the smaller finds are four bronze styluses of the kind students used to write on wax tablets, together with pottery, coins and vessels that once held olive oil from Athens. Earlier seasons at the roughly 30-acre site had already revealed a wrestling ground, a stadium and a covered running track around 200 metres long.
The mosaics closely match those at Philip II’s palace at nearby Aigai, which Kottaridi sees as confirmation that the king built Mieza to educate his son alongside the children of Macedon’s nobility. After 2,400 years, one of the most famous classrooms in history is coming back into view.
Source: Smithsonian Magazine