beehive tomb

Cross section of a beehive tomb (Treasury of Atreus)

Dromos entrance to the Treasury of Atreus

Beehive tombs, also known as Tholos tombs (plural tholoi), are a monumental Late Bronze Age development of either the Mycenaean chamber tombs or tumulus burials dating to the Middle Bronze Age.

After about 1500 BC, beehive tombs became more widespread. They were built as corbelled arches, layers of stone placed closer together as the arch tapers toward the top of the tomb. The tombs usually contain more than one burial, in various places in the tomb either on the floor, in pits and cists or on stone-built or rock-cut benches, and with various grave goods. After a burial, the entrance to the tomb was filled in with soil, leaving a small mound with most of the tomb underground.

The tripartite structure of the tombs is not always evident in the earliest mainland examples (for example at Voidhokoilia) but by the time the architectural type had left Messenia the separation into chamber, stomion and dromos was fixed. The chamber is always built in masonry, even in the earliest examples, as is the stomion or entrance-way, which provided an opportunity for conspicuous demonstration of wealth. The dromos was often just cut from the bedrock, even in some of the earlier examples at Mycenae itself. In later examples, all three parts were constructed of fine ashlar masonry.

The abundance of such tombs, often with more than one being associated with a settlement during one specific time period, may indicate that their use was not confined to the ruling monarchy only, although the sheer size and therefore the outlay required for the larger tombs (ranging from about 10 meters to about 15 meters in diameter and height) would argue in favour of royal commissions. The larger tombs contained amongst the richest finds to have come from the Late Bronze Age of Mainland Greece, despite the tombs having been pillaged both in antiquity and more recently.

There are also recorded Etruscan tombs at a necropolis at Banditaccia from the 6th and 7th Centuries BC having an external appearance similar to a beehive. The interiors are decorated and furnished as Etruscan dwellings.

Beehive tombs in Oman

The earliest stone-built tombs which can be called 'beehive', are in Oman, built of stacked flat stones which occur in nearby geological formations. They date to between 3,500 and 2,500 years BC, to a period when the Arabian peninsula was subject to much more rainfall than now, and supported a flourishing civilisation in what is now desert, to the west of the mountain range along the Gulf of Oman. No burial remains have ever been retrieved from these 'tombs', though there seems no other purpose for their building. They have only superficial similarities with the Aegean tombs (circular shape) as they are built entirely above ground level and do not share the same tripartite structure - the entrances are usually an undifferentiated part of the circular walling of the tomb.

External links

• Mycenaean tholos tombs paintings

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