The Ministry of Culture has scheduled its next announcement for November 12 at 1 p.m. amid rumors that a staircase has been found leading to an underground area beneath the artificial, rectangular trench of the third chamber. This mounting speculation regarding a stairway has yet to be confirmed nor denied.

Officials at Amphipolis have always been guarded regarding the occupant of the tomb, however public opinion has run wild. One Europe publication blames Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and the media in its article, titled “Culture as a Propaganda Tool”. “The constant coverage of the excavation is ridiculous and the TV channels constantly present a variety of ‘experts’ who have turned the archaeological discovery into a television soap opera,” states the article that points to government propaganda and an insidious approach in leaving implications that the tomb may belong to Alexander the Great without stating as much.

People’s excitement regarding the tomb is only somewhat quenched by finds such as the two sphinx guards, the caryatid statues, the mosaic and then the head of one of the sphinx guards and part of the wing. Obviously plundered in the past, the tomb is now a “victim of exploitation for ambitious archaeologists and the diminishing far-right government.”

Armchair archaeologists and geologists lead their voices to those of those involved in the excavations while everyone scrambles to further their own careers.

On her blog archaeologist Dorothy King doesn’t deny this. She states: “Unfortunately Greece is struggling to emerge from an economic crisis, and over the last decades not all archaeological projects were as well funded as they would have been in an ideal world – nor are they welsewhere, nor will they ever be. But if news of the great discoveries being made at Amphipolis lifts the spirits of the people, and gives them something to be proud of… how can that be a bad thing?”

Do you agree with her?