The ancient marble head is believed to be from a statuette of Alexander and has been part of the Otago Museum's collections since 1948.
Initially, little was known, and nothing had been published about the head, now known as the "Otago Alexander".
That changed when a scholarly chapter devoted to the sculpture, written by Prof Robert Hannah, of the University of Otago classics department, appeared in a recently published book titled Alexander & His Successors, edited by another Otago classicist, Dr Pat Wheatley, and Prof Hannah.
The book's front cover also features a photograph of the 12.8cm-high head, believed to be the only ancient sculpture of Alexander in the southern hemisphere.
Prof Hannah, who is the honorary curator of the museum's classics collections, said the sculpture was among the museum's three or four most significant classical works.
The "Alexander" and 35 other artefacts were given to the museum in 1948 by Dr Lindsay Rogers, a Dunedin-born surgeon and Otago University medical graduate, who served with the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War 2.
The marble head was originally located at Parthian Kish, in Iraq, about 80km from Baghdad and about 12km from Babylon, once a key centre in Alexander's far-flung empire.
Described by Prof Hannah as one of the museum's "more extraordinary benefactors," Dr Rogers worked as a professor of surgery at the Royal School of Medicine, Baghdad, in Iraq, after the war, until 1950, before returning to general practice in Te Awamutu.
He also won Yugoslav Government bravery awards for his sometimes harrowing earlier wartime exploits as a surgeon working in the Balkans with Marshall Tito's guerrilla forces.
His book Guerilla Surgeon (1957) recounts the harsh realities of that life: including civilian atrocities, patients attacked by wolves while hiding in forests, and four-inch nails being used to secure bones when surgical supplies ran out.
Dr Rogers drowned while holidaying in New Caledonia in 1962, when his car fell into a flooded river during a tropical downpour.
His wife escaped through an open window.
Prof Hannah said that during his 30 years as honorary curator, much research had been devoted to clarifying several matters involving the sculpture, including a likely date for its creation, which he now believed was close to the time Alexander had been alive.
He felt "huge satisfaction" in completing his research.
"It's like finishing a crossword puzzle."
