Treasury of Atreus

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The monumental dromos of the treasury of Atreus
Entrance to the grave (" Tholos ") of Atreus ("Treasury of Atreus"), built around 1250 BC. In Mycenae

The treasure house of Atreus ( Greek θησαυρός του Ατρέα ) is the most magnificent of the royal tombs preserved in Mycenae . It is an underground tholos building that was built around 1250 BC during the Late Helladic Period . Was built.

designation

Pausanias reported that there was an underground building of Atreus and his sons in Mycenae where they stored their treasures. Probably because of the valuable grave goods, the tombs were considered treasure houses in antiquity. The first visitors to Mycenae believed the domed building, which had since been robbed of its valuables, to be the building described and therefore called it the Treasury of Atreus. Occasionally one also finds the designation tomb of Agamemnon .

description

The dome tomb is located on the eastern slope of Panagitsa Hill about 400 m southwest of the upper town of Mycenae, on the road that leads from the village of Mykines to the archaeological site. One enters the tomb from the east via a monumental dromos almost 6 m wide and 36 m long, the sides of which are made of conglomerate blocks. The deeper the entrance penetrates into the burial mound, the higher the side walls rise until they finally reach the height of the entrance facade at 10.50 m.

Reconstruction of the facade

The entrance gate is 5.40 m high and 2.70 m wide at the bottom, which tapers to 2.45 m at the top. It used to be flanked by two half-columns. On both sides you can still see the three-tiered, rectangular column bases and the holes that were used to attach the columns. Zigzag lines and spirals were carved into the green marble columns and capitals . There is a relief triangle above the door lintel, which distributes the weight on the side walls and thus relieves the load on the deck beam. The wall surface and the relief chamber were previously faced with ornate cover sheets made of red marble. Left and right there was a smaller column made of green marble. Fragments of the columns and the facing are now in the British Museum in London , in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens and in the Berlin Collection of Antiquities .

The gate was previously closed with a double-leaf door. The approximately 5 m long doorway is covered by two deck beams. The larger inner capstone has a length of 8.30 m, a width of 5.20 m and a thickness of 1.20 m. Its mass is estimated at 120 tons. Directly behind the gate you get to the dome tomb. It has a height of 13.50 m and a diameter of 14.60 m. It was built in the form of a beehive from 33 layers of stones built horizontally on top of each other without the use of mortar . The layering of the blocks, which are shifted further and further inwards, results in a so-called false vault . These stones also consist of conglomerate rock that occurs on the spot. From the third layer upwards, bronze nails used to be stuck in the stones, of which only holes in the stones testify today. Bronze jewelry was probably attached to the nails, as has been proven in the dome tomb of Orchomenos . The ground is made of natural rock.

On the north side of the burial chamber there is a door that leads to another chamber. This adjoining room is almost square, measuring 6 m × 6 m and has a height of 5.80 m. He was carved into the rock. The rough wall used to be covered with stone slabs. The entrance was closed with a door and there is a relief triangle above the door beam.

The "Treasure House of Atreus" was the largest circular dome (cantilever dome) for more than 1300 years until the new building of the Pantheon in Rome under Emperor Hadrian , begun in 118 AD.

Part of the dome in the "treasure house"

Construction and function

The dome tomb was built around 1250 BC. Built in BC. For this purpose, a hole was dug and a flat surface was carved out of the rock. Now the dome was built and covered first with boulders and finally with earth. The floor of the vaulted chamber was covered with whitish earth and tamped down. The deceased were placed on this floor. After the burial, the gate was locked, walled up with stones and the dromos filled with earth, with the upper part of the entrance facade probably still visible. The grave was used for a long time, and it was opened and closed again and again.

exploration

The treasure house of Atreus was never completely buried and was therefore not forgotten. In 1729 the French clergyman Michel Fourmont visited Mycenae and made a drawing of the treasury. Louis Fauvel measured the grave for the first time around 1780 . In 1802 Lord Elgin excavated the treasury and took some fragments of the facade with him to England. In 1805 Edward Dodwell visited the archaeological site and reported some fragments of the half-column that he saw there. At the same time, William Gell paid a visit to the tomb. Lord Sligo came to Mycenae in 1810 and carried out excavations and Veli Pasha of Morea , the governor of Morea, allowed him to take the fragments of the half-column back to Ireland.

It was not until 1874 that Heinrich Schliemann fully exposed the Atreus treasury. In 1939 Alan Wace examined the treasure house more closely and was able to show from the shards he found under the doorstep that it was not built until the middle of the 13th century BC. According to Wace's classification, it belongs to the third and last Tholos group and can be dated in SH III B.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pausanias, Description of Greece 2,16,4.
  2. ↑ Cathy Gere: The Tomb of Agamemnon. Mycenae and the search for a hero . Profile Books, London 2006, pp. 48-49 .
  3. ^ Richard Copley Christie: Selected essays and papers . New York and Bombay 1902, p. 72 ( archive.org ).
  4. ^ François Pouqueville : Voyage de la Grèce . 2nd Edition. tape 5 . Paris 1827, p. 193-194 ( archive.org ).
  5. ^ Edward Dodwell: A classical and topographical tour through Greece, during the years 1801, 1805, and 1806 . London 1819, p. 229 ( archive.org ).
  6. ^ William Gell: The Itinerary of Greece . 1810, p. 29-31 ( archive.org ).
  7. ^ Alan Wace, Leicester Bodine Holland: Excavations at Mycenae. The Tholos tombs . In: The Annual of the British School at Athens . tape 25 , 1923, pp. 283-402 , doi : 10.1017 / S0068245400010352 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Treasury of Atreus  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 37 ° 43 ′ 36.5 ″  N , 22 ° 45 ′ 14 ″  E