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He was a student of Aristotle, a king of kings and a man whose name still echoes through history. The greatest emperor who ever lived. But what if you get to know that the conqueror of worlds and the man who thought himself to be divine, may have suffered one of the most horrifying fates imaginable? It would shock you how the greatest emperor ever must have died a terrible death. Alexander may have not actually been dead when his body was embalmed and entombed. His fate might have been oddly terrifying!
Buried. Alive.Yes, you read that correctly. That is what might have befallen the greatest emperor ever. Forget the grand send-off of an emperor, the golden sarcophagus and the sacred embalming. His fate might make your skin crawl. There’s a chilling theory that Alexander wasn’t dead when he was laid to rest but merely paralysed. Since he couldn't move any part of his body, he was assumed fully dead. Let’s dissect the evidence from exploring why this ancient medical mystery might just be true. Hope this happens to nobody else since it is utterly a horrifying way to exit life. This isn’t just some over-the-top Hollywood plot twist. It is a reality and can happen to anyone. Some modern medical experts believe it may have actually happened always to people in the past. Hold onto your amphora of wine because this is about to get very dark. Really really dark.
Table of contents
A case for CSI Babylon – Alexander’s mysterious death
Alexander’s death in 323 BCE had always been shrouded in mystery. The cause of his death and why at such an young age continue to baffle the world. In fact, it remains one of history’s biggest mysteries. It may go down as one of the most unsolved secrets of mankind. Unlike most rulers who went out in a blaze of assassination or battle, his end was…slow. Slow like you could feel it yourself. Suspiciously slow. It is unfortunate if true and there is nothing to alleviate the trauma from the incident. Here’s what we do know about what caused the death of Alexander the great.- Ancient historians say that he guzzled ‘a bowl of Heracles’ which sounds like the ancient equivalent of chugging an entire keg. It didn't go down well for him as he had imagined. Alexander suddenly became gravely ill after this legendary drinking binge in Babylon. He soon began to degrade in health after that.
- He developed a raging fever, crippling abdominal pain and an increasing inability to move. His recovery looked impossible from that point. He suffered a steadily rising fever, pain in the abdomen never went away and then progressively, paralysis.
- Over a duration of 12 days, he gradually lost control of his body but remained mentally alert. His agony kept getting worse from there.
- By the end, he could not even speak. His voice was gone. He became immovable from the paralysis.
- Finally, he was declared dead. He wouldn't respond to anything so it felt the logical thing to do. But his body showed no signs of decomposition for 6 days after this supposed ‘death’. However, they never considered that he could have been still alive but paralysed since he never started decomposing.
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| Babylonian astronomical diary with the record of Alexander the great's death in a British museum |
That last part is particularly spooky. Being told that you are dead while you are still alive and hearing them make your funeral plans. In a sweltering Babylonian climate, a corpse should have started to rot almost immediately. Heat accelerates decomposition of corpses while cold slows it down. Babylon climate is hot and humid. Meaning it's not going to take much time to turn into a skeleton. Instead, Alexander remained as fresh as a daisy or in his case, a god. A corpse is supposed to start decomposing in a day or two but the emperor wasn't decaying after a week. The Greeks took this as a sign of divinity. They still chose to remain detached from reality and call it a godly act that an emperor looked alive after death. The fact that Alexander’s body remained ‘fresh’ is either a miracle…or a medical nightmare. Today we understand the condition. Modern science, however, might have a more sinister explanation. More like “he wasn’t actually dead yet”. He fell victim to one of the most unfortunate medical conditions.
Paralysed but alive – The Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) theory
Fast forward to modern times. With the advantage of advanced medical science, we discovered the possible fate of the emperor. Enter Dr Katherine Hall, a clinical lecturer at the University of Otago. She came up with a suggestion of a horrifying medical condition that was entirely possible. In the year 2018, she put forth a medical hypothesis which could make you lose your mind. Just the thought of it gave nightmares. She suggests that Alexander may have suffered from Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) that is a rare autoimmune disorder that leads to progressive paralysis while leaving the victim fully conscious. The victim of the condition is aware of everything but is able to do nothing. Even the basic ability of the organism is crippled and defunct because of GBS. It is a chilling medical explanation! For it to happen to someone when science was suppressed meant an instant death sentence by nature. GBS can render a person completely paralysed but still alive. The person can unfortunately make no responses.
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| GBS damages the Schwann cells because of which messages won't pass through |
How symptoms of GBS could explain Alexander’s perplexing ‘death’…
GBS is a rare autoimmune disorder where the body’s own
immune system attacks the nerves. The nerves being attacked can prove to be near-fatal. This led the body of Alexander the great to suffer…
Fever and weakness – He started coming up with flu-like symptoms before experiencing full-body paralysis. It seemed normal sickness at first before the conditions compounded. This is absolutely common in GBS. It starts with the little things.
Ascending paralysis – GBS causes paralysis that often
begins in the legs and works it’s way up which becomes a match for historical
accounts. Soon, movements become restricted and the conditions lead the patient to be bed-ridden. They are the matching descriptions of Alexander’s decline.
Loss of mobility and speech – At the peak of GBS, sufferers get ‘locked in’ which means they are unable to move or speak but very aware of their surroundings. The muscles almost all over the body cannot function anymore and gets seized up. By the end, he couldn’t talk or move but his mind may have remained fully functional. It gave off the impression that he was dead.
Slow breathing rate – GBS can curtail respiration so drastically that it becomes nearly undetectable and making it choiceless to mistake the patient for dead. This is a horrifying fate that GBS causes. Since GBS can cause respiration to slow to the point where it’s almost undetectable. With no instruments of our time to detect pulses, breathing was one of the main methods to determine life or death. Ancient doctors could have easily mistaken him for dead. When a doctor says it, there is no defying their expertise.
The most horrifying part? The victims suffer unimaginable mental trauma. People with GBS remain fully
conscious just like you and me right now. They couldn't do something even if they wanted to. Imagine that happening to Alexander. He couldn't do a thing. Paralysed,
unable to move and unable to scream. The immediate agony that befell him would have been a torture. Imagine just lying there unable to even blink
as your army generals plan your funeral. There is no way to inform them that you are not dead. You are still alive though! Alexander the great would have cried from helplessness but the face wouldn't produce emotions or tears. His mind
is awake and trapped inside that motionless body. Unresponsive like a corpse, he couldn't prevent what was coming his way. And then, the grand funeral
procession begins...
This is the worst possible way for a man who controlled everything in life to lose control in death. Dying against his wishes and his own people being complicit in his ending unknowingly.
Did he know?
Here’s a chilling thought. Think of it. If Alexander was indeed aware but
paralysed, he would have heard his generals debating his succession, his
soldiers mourning and the plans for his body being made. His instant life goal was to show signs of life. Everything else must have seemed pointless. Imagine the
frustration. His desperation. The fear. The deathly struggle to move just a little bit enough for someone to notice. He might be pleading in his head at the people around
him to not kill him. But they can't hear his thoughts. He’d have attempted to scream a lot and no voice would
go out. His own body was his biggest enemy now. Unable to cry either. How to convince that he is fully conscious! The absolute horror of knowing what was
happening but being unable to stop it. The images of being buried alive, the suffocation under the soil and the lights fading out forever would have absolutely terrified the emperor of the worlds. Perhaps the greatest conqueror in
history fought his last and most terrifying battle not on a battlefield but
within his own body. An unfitting ending for a majestic ruler.
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| An unfortunate patient of Guillain-Barre syndrome undergoing treatment | Pic credit - UCHealth Today |
Why the ancient Greeks got it wrong | Forensics’ biggest blunder?
Let’s be fair to the physicians of those time. These aren't your 21st century professionals. Ancient
Greeks weren’t exactly pioneers of modern medicine. They had their obsolete medical techniques back then. The 323 BCE era was a world
where medical knowledge was about as advanced as modern-day YouTube conspiracy
theories. No insight or spread of information about the best medical practices. They believed illnesses were caused by an imbalance of bodily humours
like blood, black bile, phlegm and yellow bile. Not by an autoimmune attack. With religion being the standard everywhere, it meant hopelessness for those who developed illness. If
you were sick, it wasn’t because of bacteria or viruses but it was because your
humours were out of whack. Ridiculous reasons were the diagnoses. Need a cure? Need a high? No problem! Sacrifice to XYZ god and you'll be healed. Or have some leeches or let’s
drill a hole in your skull to let out the 'bad air'. The demons will leave and you are healed. Those ancient treatments
included…
Bloodletting – They used to slice a vein and let blood pour out because losing blood always fixes things, right? The practice was done due to the belief that blood at certain places on the body have gone bad. To let go off the useless blood which might accummulate or spoil good blood, they had to be bled out. With the bad blood out, now there was room for improvement in the body was what bloodletters claimed.
Trepanation – A physician would bore a hole in patient’s skull to release 'bad air' or 'demons'. Sometimes these holes were tiny but other times, not. A lot of malpractice and superstition went into Trepanation. The patient had to endure pain since there was no anesthesia back then. This was life-threatening and risky because some patients would die. There is no way to fix a punctured skull or a puncture gone into the brain without modern medical resources.
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| A 3300 BCE trepanned human skull in German museum |
Eating random herbs – and hoping for the best. If a plant looked good, smelled good, isn't damaged or stunted and didn't have parasites on it, it could die as our medicine in the ancient world. If the plant was poisonous, no one would know. The patient's death from the wrong plant would mean they were ungodly or the devil was able to overtake their life. You have no idea how lucky you are. We really live in extremely fortunate times today.
Medical science was basically just well-dressed guesswork way back then. Anyone could become a physician and start treating patients for easy money. In
other words, if you weren’t breathing much or showing movements, you were assumed
dead. The funeral could immediately begin. No fancy ECG monitors or stethoscopes, just some guy with a beard poking
you and saying 'Yep, he’s a goner'. That was your fate. But what if he wasn’t dead? Because that is what it seemed like when he was decomposing. What if
they embalmed him while he was still technically alive? They might have murdered him accidentally. Let’s not be too judgemental
on the Greek doctors of 323 BCE. They didn't know much of anything in the 4th century. Let’s be fair to Alexander’s doctors and cut them some slack.
Greek physicians didn’t know about bacteria, viruses or the nervous system. They worked purely on instincts. Given this level of expertise, it’s no surprise that Alexander’s physicians may have mistaken a paralysed man for dead. They doomed him unknowingly. He was breathing too shallowly for them to detect. The poor emperor wasn't even twitching. His body hadn’t decomposed yet after a week. All these are enough to trick even modern laymen into thinking a GBS patient had passed on. So, when Alexander became paralysed, stopped breathing normally and didn’t respond, they likely assumed he was dead. He'd have had the best physicians in the land and they were declaring with absolute certainty that he was a goner. While in reality, his breathing and heartbeat were just too faint to detect. He was perhaps going to be paralyzed for life but was very much alive. And that’s where the nightmare truly begins. Things began happening real fast. Because he was an emperor, his ‘corpse’ was quickly whisked away for embalming. State burial procedures commenced immediately.
The horrors of being buried alive!
If Alexander was buried alive, his suffering didn’t end at his alleged ‘deathbed’. The man would have suffered great anguish lying down. Now, let’s get really grim. It's not going to be nice. If Alexander was indeed suffering from GBS, what happened next would be the stuff of actual nightmares. Hope it doesn't happen to your worst enemies either. It would have been beyond terrifying. The possibilites are...
Mummified while alive – The Egyptians and Greeks were big fans of embalming and mummification. They left plenty of evidences for such practices. Ancient embalming techniques often involved evisceration (removing one or all of the internal organs) and filling the body with preserving chemicals. This meant tearing into the cadaver of the dead person. And then, wrapping the corpse up in fine linen like a royal burrito. This would ensure minimal to no decay. Evisceration was often while the body was still warm. Yes, it had to be done prior to rigor mortis setting in. If he was paralysed but still sentient, he felt everything and the pain would have been unimaginably excruciating. With a weak undetectable heartbeat induced by GBS, his blood wouldn't spurt when embalmers were making incisions. He would have felt every agonising second of the mummification process. A truly unspeakable horror till his actual passing away!
Being entombed or sealed in a sarcophagus and either fully aware or waking up later – If they skipped the embalming and placed him straight into a sealed sarcophagus, there’s a terrifying possibility that Alexander woke up...only to suffocate in total darkness. And not to mention, that the passage of time would force his body to egest undigested food and urinate if he had air coming in for breathing through the box. He might have regained some function just in time to suffocate to death actually. Not knowing what to do in the darkness of the box would have mental torture for hours. Imagine the horror of waking up in a pitch-black tomb and unable to move or call for help. Plus, the claustrophobia will get to you somehow.
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| A sarcophagus is a huge stone-carved coffin and because of it's immense weight parts, it is left above ground without being buried |
Either way, it’s a chilling and tragic end for a man who had conquered much of the known world. Without modern weaponry, he had conquered part of the Earth itself. A king who had conquered the world, now trapped inside his own tomb, fully aware of his impending death. He led many to death and his own body led him the same way. It’s the kind of horror story that would make even Stephen King lose sleep.
Other theories looming about Alexander’s death
Of course, not everyone buys into the GBS theory. There are still people who dispute Alexander's GBS death. While the GBS theory is compelling, other historians and medical experts have offered different explanations too. Their arguments also make sense.
Poisoning – A slow-acting poison like white hellebore might explain his drawn-out suffering. Claims of him being poisoned also is doing the rounds. Some believe Alexander was assassinated using this slow-acting toxin. The poison slowly ended him over days. They began destroying him slowly until he passes away. But ancient poisons weren’t always predictable. They weren't a 100% reliable. Some concoctions worked, others almost worked and some failed. White hellebore poisoning might explain all his symptoms to most extents. He was showing most of the symptoms of such a poisoning.
Malaria and/or typhoid fever – Both these diseases were very common in ancient Babylon and both of them used to and still cause prolonged illness. Malaria explained the escalating fever that Alexander had developed. There is no antidote for malaria even today and so it remains one of the leading causes of death in the world. It can be suspected if malaria had ended Alexander's life so prematurely.
West Nile virus – Some believe that Alexander
contracted this mosquito-borne illness during his campaigns. In his conquests, he moved from place to place. With 4th century precautions, it was easy to fall prey to the virus. Few researchers
insist on this theory about his death. They suggest that he was bitten by a mosquito infected by West Nile virus. A
rather undignified way for a world conqueror to go. Not cool.
However, none of these propositions explain the lack of decomposition very well as GBS does. Today, we have plenty of real time cases of GBS. Hence, this makes GBS the most terrifyingly plausible answer that caused Alexander’s death. He must have surely died a painful death.
History’s greatest missing person’s case – Where is Alexander’s body now?
Alexander’s funeral was as grand as his conquests. The ceremonies were quick to begin. After his ‘death’, Alexander’s body was placed in a magnificent golden sarcophagus and set on a journey to Macedonia. Macedonia was his birthplace. But somewhere along the way, his general Ptolemy hijacked the procession and took his body to Egypt where he was interred in Alexandria. This is all the world knows as of today. His tomb became a sacred site. The place where the greatest emperor in history was laid. For centuries, Alexander’s tomb became one of the most visited places in the ancient world. Prominent people from all over the world had visited his tomb. The site was visited by figures such as Augustus, Caligula and Julius Caesar. They were just as important people in world history as Alexander the great himself.
Then, at some point, it vanished. By it, I mean the tomb. Today, however, Alexander’s final resting place remains a mystery. The location is lost to time. To this day, nobody knows where Alexander’s body is. What was once the most visited shrine to his admirers was unfortunately gone forever. The unfolding events remain a mystery. His tomb was lost to history which adds yet another layer of intrigue to his already legendary demise. There are many claims on how it happened. Some believe it was destroyed while others claim that it lies beneath modern Alexandria and is waiting to be rediscovered. Egypt was a war-torn country throughout times and so either of that is a possibility. Alexander’s tomb remains one of history’s many greatest unsolved mysteries. It is yet to be found or destroyed by the people of the past. What if the real reason we’ve never found his tomb is because it wasn’t just a tomb? May be it is kept away as a secret? No one knows.
The ultimate irony of Alexander’s fate
Alexander believed himself to be a god. It was justifiable for him to think so considering all of his accomplishments. He sought to conquer the world, define history and gain immortality. He was even destined to be the greatest at the very young age of 32. But if the GBS theory is correct, his final experience on Earth was one of total helplessness which is the exact opposite of the life he had led. He couldn't win that battle or war against his own body. A man who controlled everything in life lost control over his body. He had everything and suddenly had nothing. A warrior who could inspire armies couldn’t move a single muscle. He came, he saw and he conquered. And, in a cruel twist of fate, the world thought he was dead while he still clung to life. The greatest emperor in human history who had everything he wanted in this life, had everything taken away from him.
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| Actual coins of the emperor |
Alexander spent his life as the ultimate conqueror but only to become completely powerless in the end. He grew up nothing except success. He sought immortality and yet his body has been lost to time. Not even his corpse is to be found anywhere today and time has been that wicked to the greatest among us. Imagine the frustration when he was leaving us for real. The fear. The inconsolable panic. The cruel irony. All of a man's dreams cut short unjustifiably. For a man who reshaped history, his final moments may have been the most tragic chapter of all. No one is the history of mankind anticipated such an ending for an emperor of many many kingdoms.
The irony is almost poetic. Philosophies can be weaned out of his life and death. History is full of mysteries and
Alexander’s death remains one of the most haunting. Did he die from poisoning, infections or actually GBS? We’ll probably never know
for sure what really happened to Alexander in those final days. How he died is unfortunate and unknowable. But if the GBS
theory is correct, it means that one of the greatest figures in history didn’t
just die. It was an alarming end. He endured one of the most horrifying fates imaginable. He may have been bad but that wasn't a good end. And if that
doesn’t give you chills, nothing will.
The GBS theory serves as a stark reminder of how little ancient medicine understood about the human body. So, next time you hear someone talking about Alexander the Great, remember his greatest challenge may not have been conquering Persia, but surviving his own funeral. And if you're ever feeling unwell in ancient Babylon, make sure they check your pulse more than once.
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