Greece has uncovered the school where Aristotle taught a teenage Alexander the Great.
Archaeologists in Greece have uncovered the ancient Royal Gymnasium at Mieza, the site where the philosopher Aristotle tutored a teenage Alexander the Great between 343 and 340 BCE.
Led by archaeologist Angeliki Kottaridi, the excavation team revealed a sprawling, 30-acre ancient school complex with lecture halls, banquet rooms with colorful mosaics, a wrestling school and an athletic stadium. The find also brought up physical remnants of everyday student life, including four bronze writing styluses likely used by Alexander and his elite classmates.
This historic find links literary tradition to physical remains and offers a rare look into the classroom that shaped the ancient world. At Mieza, Aristotle did not merely tutor the future conqueror. He instructed a small group of young Macedonian nobles, including Hephaestion and the future Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy, in ethics, philosophy and sciences.
By unearthing the physical classrooms of these historical figures, archaeologists have located the site tied to the start of the global Hellenistic era.