Hello Dr.Reames! I've noticed that some people say Alexander wanted to be buried together with Hephaestion after his death, but others claim that he wished to be interred near the Temple of Amun. Which of these viewpoints do you agree with?
Neither. As an Argead king, Alexander would have expected to be buried at Aigai (Aegae) with the rest of his clan. Hephaistion was not an Argead and so, could not have been buried in the royal graveyard there. Never mind that Hephaistion had already been cremated at Babylon. I've not seen in any ancient source that he said he wanted to be buried with Hephaistion. That's a modern fiction (no doubt extrapolating from Homer).
The bit about Ammon was the excuse Ptolemy used for stealing the body on its way back to Macedonia. While it's not completely out of the question, I find it highly unlikely. To be interred as part of a family or clan, if possible, was the assumption in the ancient world. Obviously, death in war (or from illness) in foreign lands was, for the average person, going to interfere with that.
But Alexander's body was prepared for transport back to Macedon. There is no indication that Hephaistion's bones (if any were even able to be recovered from the pyre*) were returned with him. Again, as noted, the funeral train was intercepted in eastern Syria, and Ptolemy hijacked the body south to Memphis.
One of the issues with any claims about what Alexander wanted involves the absolutely cutthroat environment after his death. "Last Plans" were produced, some so ridiculous they seem to have been invented by Perdikkas for the sole reason of getting the army to vote them all down en masse (including some that were probably legit, such as the campaigns and similar that Perdikkas had no intention of pursuing).
Anyway, if Alexander expressed any particular desire to be buried at a location other than Aigai (such as in Egypt), that claim is suspect due to the fact Ptolemy ran off with him. Possession of Alexander's body was a major coup, and the Ptolemies created a whole new religious cult built around his tomb and purported apotheosis.
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*Hephaistion's pyre was simply enormous, and his body was reputedly placed at the top of the pyramidal structure. Finding his bones, when the whole thing was done burning, would have been quite a chore. There has been some discussion among academics about whether it really WAS a pyre, or was actually a tomb not meant to burn at all, which is something I'll address in the monograph. But for the purposes of this question, whether pyre or tomb is irrelevant. Alexander wasn't buried there, and any bones that may have been located weren't taken back with Alexander to Macedon (or to Memphis, as it turned out). Maybe they were and nobody mentioned it? I doubt that. If such an arrangement had been made, it would have been too Homeric, and at least Arrian would have told us. (He loved all his Homeric allusions, some of which he just invented. That he did not relate [even to invent] that one should tell us it didn't happen.)
