I hazard a guess that the tomb was intended as a semi-public place and a shrine and not just a tomb, so the entrance beyond the sphinxes but probably not farther was intended to be open. Then, probably for political reasons, the site’s outer parts were dismantled and it was hidden in it’s entirety at some later point. But there seem to be some amount of respect involved, this was apparently no defilement.
I have little doubt it was intended as a royal tomb – those that followed Alexander the Great on the throne in Macedon would never have allowed any of his commanders to build such a grand tomb, as has been proposed. It would have been seen as a challenge to the royal authority.
In March there were claims of finding of new Argead royal tombs in Vergina – including Perdiccas II – and possibly the tomb of Cassander. These tombs are far more modest, as is typical of the royal tombs, and as this Amphipolis tomb was build no later than the rule of Cassander, it beggars belief that he would have allowed it to be build while building a much more smaller tomb for himself.
Beyond the very small possibility that this was not intended to be actual tomb but a shrine or cenotaph or that this was actually originally commissioned by Alexander for his father Philip II, I believe that this was intended to be the tomb for Alexander the Great, somebody else was or were buried there and later, either during dynastic change or Roman takeover, it became politically inconvenient and was deliberately hidden.
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