Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE, according to Archaeology, and if his wishes had been followed, his body would have been thrown into a river. That did not happen, and instead, his succeeding generals devised a plan to build a proper tomb for him. Eventually, he was buried in Memphis (Egypt), then re-buried in Alexandria (Egypt), then moved again to another Alexandria mausoleum.

That mausoleum was almost certainly raided and looted by armies that crossed through the region over the ensuing centuries. And by the fourth century CE, if accounts from Christian scholars of the era are to be believed, no one in Alexandria knew where any of Alexander’s three tombs were located. By the 9th, 10th, and 16th centuries, Arab scholars were claiming to have visited Alexander’s tomb, but none of their accounts specified where it was.

Archaeologists have undertaken multiple efforts to find the body, with little success. As recently as 2019, according to National Geographic, researchers believe they found clues in the excavation of an ancient Alexandrian royal dwelling, but as of this writing, the location of Alexander’s tomb remains elusive.