Vergina in the context of "Golden Larnax"

Ancient Greek art is the visual and applied arts, as well as the architecture, produced by the Hellenes or Greek peoples from the start of the Iron Age to the Hellenistic period, ending with Roman conquest of Greece at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BCE. It stands out among that of other ancient cultures for its development of naturalistic but idealized depictions of the human body, in which largely nude male figures were generally the focus of innovation. The rate of stylistic development between about 750 and 300 BC was remarkable by ancient standards, and in surviving works is best seen in sculpture. There were important innovations in painting, which have to be essentially reconstructed due to the lack of original survivals of quality, other than the distinct field of painted pottery.

Greek architecture, technically very simple, established a harmonious style with numerous detailed conventions that were largely adopted by Roman architecture and are still followed in some modern buildings. It used a vocabulary of ornament that was shared with pottery, metalwork and other media, and had an enormous influence on Eurasian art, especially after Buddhism carried it beyond the expanded Greek world created by Alexander the Great. The social context of Greek art included radical political developments and a great increase in prosperity; the equally impressive Greek achievements in philosophy, literature and other fields are well known.

Aegae or Aigai (Ancient Greek: Αἰγαί) was the original capital of Macedon, the ancient kingdom of the Makedones in Emathia in northern Greece. The site is located on the foothills of the Pierian Mountains, between the modern towns of Vergina and Palatitsia, and overlooks the Central Macedonian Plain. The city was abandoned in the 3rd century and was rediscovered in the 19th.

Three major archaeological missions have been carried out at Aegae. The first was led by Léon Heuzey of the French School at Athens in the 1860s; Manolis Andronikos led excavations over a century later and made many important discoveries, including the tomb of Philip II and the Golden Larnax bearing the Vergina Sun; and Angeliki Kottaridi [el] led restoration efforts in the 2000s. Today it is the site of an archaeological site and two museums. Prior to the discoveries at Vergina, Edessa was thought to be the site of Aegae.

Lower Macedonia (Greek: Κάτω Μακεδονία, Kato Makedonia) or Lower Macedon or Macedonia proper or Emathia is a geographical term used in Antiquity referring to the coastal plain watered by the rivers Haliacmon, Axius and Loudias, stretching along the coast of the Thermaic Gulf, which was the core and defined the center of the Argead kingdom of Macedon. Its districts were: Emathia, Pieria, Bottiaea, Almopia, Amphaxitis. Aigai (near modern Vergina), the original capital of Macedon, and Pella, the birthplace of Alexander the Great and the new capital of the kingdom since the 4th century BC, were in Lower Macedonia, in modern Central Macedonia, in Greece.

The Kasta Tomb (Greek: Τύμβος Καστά), also known as the Amphipolis Tomb (Greek: Τάφος της Αμφίπολης), is the largest ancient tumulus (burial mound) ever discovered in Greece, and by comparison dwarfs that of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, in Vergina.

It is an ancient Macedonian tomb of the last quarter of the 4th c. BC, and is enclosed in the Kasta mound near the ancient city of Amphipolis, Central Macedonia, in northern Greece. The first excavations at the mound in 1964 led to exposure of the perimeter wall, and further excavations in the 1970s uncovered many other ancient remains. The inner tomb was first discovered in 2012 and entered in August 2014.

The Pierian Mountains (or commonly referred to as Piéria) are a mountain range between Imathia, Pieria and Kozani Region, south of the plain of Kampania in Central Macedonia, Greece. The village of Vergina, where the archaeological site of ancient Aigai lies, is built at the foot of these mountains. The highest point in the range is Flampouro at 2,193m (7,195 feet). The Pierian Mountains are the site of the ski resort of Elatochori. They also have two mountaineering refuges, at 1000m and 1680m.

The Vergina Sun (Greek: Ήλιος της Βεργίνας, romanized: Ilios tis Vergínas, lit. 'Sun of Vergina'), also known as the Star of Vergina, Vergina Star or Argead Star, is a rayed solar symbol first appearing in ancient Greek art of the period between the 6th and 2nd centuries BC. The Vergina Sun proper has sixteen triangular rays, while comparable symbols of the same period variously have sixteen, twelve, eight or (rarely) six rays.

The name "Vergina Sun" became widely used after the archaeological excavations in and around the small town of Vergina, in northern Greece, during the late 1970s. In older references, the name "Argead Star" or "Star of the Argeadai" is used for the Sun as the possible royal symbol of the Argead dynasty of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia. There it was depicted on a golden larnax found in a 4th-century BC royal tomb belonging to either Philip II or Philip III of Macedon, the father and half-brother of Alexander the Great, respectively.