Warning: Contains spoilers for Moon Knight episode 4.
Marvel's Moon Knight episode 4 involved a discovery of Alexander the Great’s tomb, begging the question of whether or not it's missing in real life and what the true story is. The revelation of Ammit’s tomb also being Alexander the Great’s is treated as a major revelation on Steven’s part thanks to it having been missing, which matches up with the tomb's current status in real life. The story behind all of that isn’t a long one, but it does warrant an explanation, especially for anyone who would want the historical context behind Marvel’s Moon Knight using it.
In June 323 BC, Alexander the Great died in the Babylonian palace of Nebuchadnezzar II after being deathly sick for two weeks. The exact nature of Alexander’s sickness is unknown, but some causes that have been suggested are malaria, typhoid fever, and West Nile virus. Poisoning was largely ruled out because of how long it took for him to die, but in a 2014 journal, Dr. Leo Schep suggested that white hellebore could have been used to poison him since its poison takes a while to kill someone (via Phys.org). Regardless, following his death, Alexander’s body was sealed in a golden sarcophagus with plans to carry it to Macedonia.
This marked the beginning of Alexander the Great’s tomb going missing, as stated in Moon Knight episode 4. Before his body could be brought to Macedonia, Alexander’s general, Ptolemy I Soter, stole it and took it to Memphis, likely in a bid to assert his right to the throne, and it stayed there until Ptolemy II Philadelphus transferred it to Alexandria. After that, Alexander's tomb was constantly raided by people looking to sell his things for money, with the original sarcophagus even being replaced with a glass one by Ptolemy IX Lathyros so it could be sold for coinage. Add in Alexandria constantly being destroyed by war and natural disasters, by 400 AD, there wasn’t enough physical evidence of Alexander the Great left to reasonably declare that he was still buried in Alexandria. In 2021, Egyptian officials declared that they located his tomb in the Siwa Oasis (via Egypt Independent), but the location is still up for debate.
Is Alexander The Great The MCU’s First Confirmed Superhero?
In Moon Knight episode 4, Steven also discovered that Alexander himself was revealed to be a former avatar of Ammit. This suggests that in the MCU, Alexander the Great channeled Ammit’s power to carry out her idea of justice, and given the time period that he lived in, he, and any other avatars around at the time, could have been among the first superheroes on Earth. Chronologically, the Eternals would still be older than that, as they first came to Earth in 5000 BC, but Alexander could still be among the first superheroes to actually be born on Earth.
Some factors could complicate the idea of Alexander being a superhero. For starters, Moon Knight has established the Egyptian God Ammit as a vengeful god who kills people before they even commit a crime or sin, so Alexander being her avatar could mean that he was a villain. However, since Ammit’s ushabti was sealed in his tomb, Alexander could have been the avatar who was said to have betrayed Ammit in episode 1, so if he wasn’t a hero from the start, then he could have at least become one by the end of his life. Further complicating things is how Alexander has historically been portrayed. In addition to spending his life conquering people and establishing an empire, he was also noted to have had a violent temper and to be a paranoid megalomaniac who considered himself a god, none of which comes across as very heroic.
Whatever the case, Marvel's Moon Knight doesn't offer enough information about the MCU’s version of Alexander the Great to make a definitive statement about the kind of person he was. Since it’s clear that he was involved in sealing Ammit, however, his exact connection to Ammit is likely to be explored. There are only two episodes left of Moon Knight, so there's still a lot of plot to unpack before the first season wraps up.
Moon Knight releases new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.
