The Treasury of Atreus or Tomb of Agamemnon [1]is an impressive "tholos" tomb at Mycenae, Greece (on the Panagitsa Hill) constructed around 1250 BCE. The lintel stone above the doorway weighs 120 tons. The tomb was used for an unknown period of time. Mentioned by Pausanias, it was still visible in 1879 when the archeologist German Heinrich Schliemann discovered the shaft graves under the 'agora' in the Acropolis at Mycenae.
The tomb perhaps held the remains of the sovereign who completed the reconstruction of the fortress or one of his successors. The grave is in the style of the other tholoi of the Mycenaean World, of which there are nine in total around the citadel of Mycenae and five more in the Argolid. However, in its monumental shape and grandeur it is one of the most impressive monuments surviving from Mycenaean Greece.
It is formed of a semi-subterranean room of circular plan, with a corbel arch covering that is ogival in section. With an interior height of 13.5m and a diameter of 14.5m,[2] it was the tallest and widest dome in the world for over a thousand years until construction of the Temple of Mercury in Baiae and the Pantheon in Rome. (See List of world's largest domes.) Great care was taken in the positioning of the enormous stones, to guarantee the vault's stability over time in bearing the force of compression from its own weight. This obtained a perfectly smoothed internal surface, onto which could be placed gold, silver and bronze decoration.
The tholos was entered from an inclined uncovered hall or dromos, 36 meters long and with dry-stone walls. A short passage led from the tholos chamber to the actual burial chamber, which was dug out in a nearly cubical shape.
The entrance portal to the tumulus was richly decorated: half-columns in green limestone with zig-zag motifs on the shaft[2], a frieze with rosettes above the architrave of the door, and spiral decoration in bands of red marble that closed the triangular aperture above an architrave. The capitals are influenced by ancient Egyptian examples, and one is in the Pergamon Museum as part of the Antikensammlung Berlin. Other decorative elements were inlaid with red porphyry and green alabaster, a surprising luxury for the Bronze Age.
See also
References
- ^ A.J.B. Wace, “Excavations at Mycenae: IX. The Tholos Tombs”, Annual of the British School at Athens 25, 1923, 283-402
- ^ Structurae.de: Treasury of Atreus
External links
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Coordinates: 37°43′36.5″N 22°45′12.97″E / 37.726806°N 22.7536028°E
- Treasury of Atreus in the Structurae database
- Treasury of Atreus 360° Interactive virtual tour
- A different light inside Treasury of Atreus
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