Τάφος του Αγαμέμνονα | |
 Thedromos of the Treasury of Atreus | |
  Treasury of Atreus Location of the Treasury of Atreus in the Peloponnese | |
| Location | Mycenae, Greece |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 37°43′37″N22°45′14″E / 37.72682°N 22.75387°E /37.72682; 22.75387 |
| History | |
| Material | Poros stone,conglomerate,marble. |
| Founded | c. 1400 – c. 1250 BCE |
| Periods | Late Bronze Age |
| Cultures | Mycenaean Greece |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1801–1955 |
| Archaeologists | Heinrich Schliemann,Panagiotis Stamatakis,Alan Wace |
| Public access | Yes |
| Designated | 1999 |
| Part of | Archaeological Sites of Mycenae and Tiryns |
| Reference no. | 941 |
TheTreasury of Atreus orTomb of Agamemnon[1] is a largetholos orbeehive tomb constructed between 1300 and 1250 BCE inMycenae,Greece.[2]
It is the largest and most elaboratetholos tomb known to have been constructed in theAegean Bronze Age, and one of the last to have been built in theArgolid. The main tomb consisted of a circular burial chamber, orthalamos, topped with acorbelled dome. This dome was the largest in the world until theRoman period, and remains the world's largest corbelled dome. Originally, the façade was decorated with marble columns and sculptures, which used marble from theMani Peninsula in the southernPeloponnese. Its artwork has been suggested to have been inspired by that ofMinoan Crete and ofAncient Egypt.
Little is known of the persons who might have been buried in the tomb: the identification with the mythical Atreus andAgamemnon likely dates to the 18th century. The immense labour involved in the construction of the tomb, as well as the similarities between the architecture of thetholos and the structures of the citadel of Mycenae, has led to suggestions that it may have been intended for a ruler of Mycenae, and represent Mycenae's increasingly dominant status in the later part of the Bronze Age.
The tomb was first excavated in the 19th century, when parts of the marble sculptures of its façade were removed by the British aristocratLord Elgin and theOttoman governorVeli Pasha. It was partly excavated byHeinrich Schliemann, and more fully byPanagiotis Stamatakis, in the 1870s. Throughout the 20th century, theBritish School at Athens made a series of excavations in and around the tomb, led byAlan Wace, which primarily aimed to settle the difficult question of the date of its construction.
.jpg)
InGreek mythology,Atreus was the son ofHippodamia andPelops, the king ofPisa in the westernPeloponnese. In the version of the myth recounted byHyginus, Atreus and his brotherThyestes killed their half-brotherChrysippus by casting him into a well out of jealousy, urged on by their mother.[3] As a punishment for their crime, they were banished to Mycenae, whereHippodamia is variously said to have died by suicide[4] or further exiled herself toMidea.[5]
Atreus and Thyestes quarrelled for the throne of Mycenae: first, Thyestes gained it after Atreus' wife,Aerope, gave a golden lamb from Atreus' flock to Thyestes and then tricked him into agreeing that whoever held the lamb should become king. Atreus in turn managed to regain the throne afterHermes persuaded Thyestes to hand the kingship to Atreus if the sun were to rise in the west and set in the east, and thenHelios altered the usual course of the sun so that it did exactly that.[3] Finally, Atreus banished Thyestes after tricking him into eating the flesh of his own sons.[6]
On the advice of anoracle, Thyestes had a son by his daughter,Pelopia, as it was foretold that this son would kill Atreus. When the infant,Aegisthus, was born, his mother abandoned him, but he was found by a shepherd and given to Atreus to raise; when Aegisthus entered adulthood, Thyestes revealed the truth of his parentage. Aegisthus killed Atreus and ruled Mycenae jointly with Thyestes.[7]
The heroesAgamemnon andMenelaus were the twin sons of Atreus, sometimes known as theAtreides in Greek literature. After their father's murder, they took refuge withTyndareus, king ofSparta: later, with Menelaus' assistance, Agamemnon overthrew Aegisthus and Thyestes and became king of Mycenae.[8] However, Aegisthus would, along with Agamemnon's wifeClytemnestra, kill Agamemnon on his return from theTrojan War, before being himself killed by Agamemnon's son,Orestes.[9]
The precise origin of the name is uncertain, but it probably dates to the 18th century. The tomb was visible in Antiquity, but not associated with Atreus or Agamemnon whenPausanias visited in the 2nd century CE, since he describes the graves of both rulers as being within the walls of Mycenae.[10] After Pausanias, there are no documented accounts of travellers visiting Mycenae until 1700,[11] when theVenetian engineer and surveyor Francesco Vandeyk identified both theLion Gate and the tomb now known as the 'Treasury of Atreus', which he conjectured was the tomb of a king.[12] Claude-Louis Fourmont, who visited Mycenae in 1729–1730,[12] used the name 'Tomb of Atreus' for the monument: by the timeEdward Daniel Clarke visited at the beginning of the 19th century,[13] he could report a tradition that the tomb was known as 'Treasury of Atreus' and identified with the tomb of Agamemnon mentioned in Pausanias.[14]
The nearby tombs known as theTomb of Clytemnestra andTomb of Aegisthus are so named by association with the Treasury of Atreus.[15][16]
The Treasury of Atreus is the largest and most elaborate of the known Mycenaeantholos tombs.[17] It follows the typical tripartite division of these tombs into a narrow rectangular passageway (dromos), joined by a deep doorway (stomion) to a burial chamber (thalamos) surmounted by acorbelled dome. The dome was covered with earth to heighten it; some of this mound remains, buterosion has reduced its height and moved its apex towards the west.[18]
Thedromos of the tomb is oriented east-west and is 36 m long by 6 m wide.[19] For the first 19 metres from thestomion,[20] the sides are dressed withconglomerate stone walls:[21] while thedromoi of earlier tombs had been lined with rubble or porosashlar, the Treasury of Atreus is the first tomb at Mycenae to be fully lined with conglomerate.[22] The source of this conglomerate is likely to have been local to Mycenae.[23] Wace estimates the total volume of masonry in thedromos at over 600 m3, or a weight of over 1200 tons.[19] The height of the walls increases from 0.5 m at the eastern end to 10 m at the façade; their thickness correspondingly increases from around 2 m at the eastern entrance to around 3 m at the western entrance nearest to the façade, reflecting the additional pressure of the earth behind the walls as well as from the façade they support. The ashlar walls are bonded by yellow 'Plesia' clay,[23] amortar commonly used in Mycenaean architecture.[24]
| Period | Approximate Date |
|---|---|
| Middle Helladic III | c.1700–c.1600 BCE[25] |
| Late Helladic I | c.1600–c.1450 BCE[25] |
| Late Helladic II | c.1450–c.1400 BCE[25] |
| Late Helladic IIIA | c.1400–c.1300 BCE[25] |
| Late Helladic IIIB | c.1300–c.1180 BCE[25] |
| Late Helladic IIIC | c.1180–c.1050 BCE[25] |
The façade of thestomion is 10.5 m high, with a doorway 5.4 m high, 2.7 m wide and 5.4 m deep.[18] On top of this doorway are two lintel blocks, the innermost of which is 8 m in length, 5 m in width and 1.2 m thick: with a weight of around 120 tons, it is the heaviest single piece of masonry known from Greek architecture[26] and may have required up to 1,000 people to transport it to the tomb.[27] Above the doorway is a 'relieving triangle', an innovation first used at Mycenae on the earlier Tomb of Aegisthus to reduce the stress placed upon the lintel.[22] This triangle is believed to have originally been decorated with sculpture.[28] It has been suggested that the scale of the relieving triangle was intended to symbolise the power to harness resources.[29]
Due to the fragmentary and scattered nature of the remains,[a] there are various reconstructions of the decoration of the façade.[30] The door was flanked bysemi-engaged columns in green marble, with zig-zag motifs on the shaft.[30] Two smaller half-columns were placed on either side of the relieving triangle, while red marble was used to create afrieze with rosettes above thearchitrave of the door, and spiral decoration in bands of red marble that closed the triangular aperture.[30] In the 1960s,Richard Hope Simpson, along withReynold Higgins and S.E. Ellis, demonstrated that the red marble, known asrosso antico, came from quarries on theMani peninsula, and suggested that it was 'highly probable' that the green marble traced to the same source.[31][b] This red marble was later known aslapis Taenarius afterCape Taenarum.[33] Two reliefs in gypsum (the only such use of the material in the tomb),[32] carved with the image of bulls, may have decorated either the façade or the side chamber.[30] The empty 'relieving triangle' above the lintel of the façade served to direct the weight of the dome away from the centre of the lintel, reducing the stress placed upon it.[34]Christos Tsountas suggested that the façade may have included an alabastercornice, since fragments of a similar structure were found in theTomb of Clytemnestra, which he believed to be contemporary with 'Atreus':[35] however, recent re-evaluation of the Tomb of Clytemnestra has suggested that it may have been built up to two centuries later,[36] making this suggestion hypothetical at best.
Thethalamos is made up of 33 courses of ashlar masonry (cut and workedlimestone), 14.5 m in diameter and 13.2 m high.[18] It was initially constructed by the excavation of a cylindrical cavity from the hillside, which was then built up with masonry into a corbelled dome.[37] Traces of nails hammered into the interior have been recovered, which have been interpreted as evidence for decorations, perhaps golden rosettes, once hung from the inside dome.[29] A 2.5-meter-high doorway on the northern side of the inner chamber leads into a 6-meter square side chamber:[18] along with theTreasury of Minyas atOrchomenos inBoeotia, which appears to be built to the same plan, the Treasury of Atreus is the only known Mycenaeantholos with a side chamber.[38] Most scholars consider this to have been the location of any burials that were made inside the tomb, though no direct evidence of such burials has survived;[29] Alan Wace, however, believed that it was used as anossuary to which the remains of previous burials were relocated while further interments were made in the mainthalamos.[39] The tomb was the tallest and widest stone dome in the world for over a thousand years, until the Roman period, which saw the construction of the “Temple of Mercury” (actually part of abath complex) atBaiae in the late 1st century BCE or early 1st century CE and of thePantheon in Rome in the 2nd century CE.[40] Both of these are "true" domes, as opposed to corbelled domes, making the Treasury of Atreus the world's largest corbelled dome.
The earthentumulus above the tomb was originally supported by a retaining wall ofporos stone, which is preserved to a height of 1.5 m and a thickness of around 1 m.[18] It is believed that this poros stone was quarried in the hills north-west of Mycenae, in the direction ofNemea.[23] A terrace, approximately 27 m in both length and breadth, was constructed in front of the tomb.[41]
James Wright has described the construction oftholos tombs as a 'monumental expression of power',[42] and highlighted the connections between the architecture of the tomb and that of the broadly-contemporary[c] fortifications and palace on the acropolis. In particular, Wright draws attention to the resemblance between the relieving triangle and the sculpted relief of the Lion Gate, and the heavy use of conglomerate on the tomb, which is used within the citadel to accentuate key architectural features, particularly column andanta bases, thresholds and door jambs.[43] It has also been suggested that the tapering sides and inward slant of the doorway may have been inspired byAncient Egyptian architecture, while the running-spiral motif on the upper half-columns may trace back to Minoan art.[44]
Little is known about the organisation of the tomb's construction or the workers who built it.Elizabeth French has suggested that the same workforce who constructed the LH IIImegaron (the so-called 'Palace III') on the acropolis may subsequently have been used to construct the Treasury of Atreus,[17] and that they may have been worked as part of acorvée system.[17] It has been calculated that the construction of the tomb required at least 20,000 worker-days of labour,[45][d] and estimated that it may have occupied up to 1600 people[47] and been a years- or decades-long project.[48]
Nothing is known of who might have been buried inside the tomb, though it is generally considered to have been an elite or royal figure,[49] perhaps a ruler of the site or somebody close to its rulers.[50]
The date of the tomb has historically been controversial,[48] though most scholars would now date it toc. 1400–1250 BCE.[48] In the early 20th century, it was the focus of a debate betweenArthur Evans and Alan Wace, which became known as the 'Helladic Heresy'. After the beginnings of his excavations ofKnossos from 1900, Evans began increasingly to argue for a distinction between the 'Minoan' civilisation of Crete and the 'Mycenaean' civilisation of the mainland. Although he had used the terms 'Minoan' and 'Mycenaean' interchangeably for his findings on Crete during the first two years of excavation,[51] Evans came to follow the German archaeologistArthur Milchhöfer in arguing that the origins of Mycenaean civilisation lay on Crete:[52] specifically, through the 'domination' of the mainland of Greece by 'Minoan dynasts'.[51] In 1918, however, Wace published an article entitled 'The Pre-Mycenaean Pottery of the Mainland'[53] along withCarl Blegen, whose own excavations atKorakou inCorinthia in 1915–1916 had convinced him that substantial differences existed between 'Minoan' and 'Helladic' culture in the Late Bronze Age.[54][51] In their article, Wace and Blegen argued for the essential continuity of mainland-Greek, or 'Helladic', culture from the early to late Bronze Age, and that 'Mycenaean' civilisation (which then referred specifically to the period now designated as the Late Helladic).[55] Mycenaean culture, they argued, was 'not merely transplanted from Crete, but [was] the fruit of the cultivated Cretan graft set on the wild stock of the mainland'.[56] Moreover, while they accepted the influence of Crete on mainland Greece during the Middle Helladic period, they argued that the culture of the mainland remained 'Mycenaean as opposed to Cretan',[57] and that it was 'inconceivable' that Late Helladic culture represented a different 'race' to that of the Early Helladic.[57]
Wace and Blegen's argument stood in direct opposition to Evans' narrative, by which theShaft Graves of Mycenae, first used in the transition between the Middle Helladic and Late Helladic periods,[58] represented the tombs of the 'Minoan' rulers of Mycenae, and therefore a sharp break with the cultural forms that preceded them. He further argued that thetholoi, particularly the Treasury of Atreus, were not only contemporary with the Shaft Graves but themselves copies of similar-looking structures found on Crete.[59] In the report of his first excavations at Mycenae in 1920, of which he informed Evans by letter, Wace suggested a later date for the Treasury of Atreus ofc.1400–1200 BCE, rather than thec.1600–1500 BCE needed to conform with Evans' theory.[60] This chronological disagreement, and the associated implication that the monumentality and elaboration of Mycenae's funerary forms had increased over the Late Helladic period — which was seen to contradict the idea of the site having been dominated by Cretan rulers[61] — was dubbed the 'Helladic Heresy' byJohn Percival Droop.[62]
Following further excavations in the 1920s, including that of the Tomb of Aegisthus, which he dated securely to LH IIA and argued as earlier than 'Atreus', Wace dated the tomb to LH III,[63] later giving aterminus ante quem of 1350 BCE.[64] This was primarily based on the findings of his 1939 excavation, which showed that thedromos had been dug through the so-called 'Bothros deposit', which included LH IIIA1 material, providing aterminus post quem for its construction.[65] Most modern treatments consider the construction of the Treasury of Atreus and the fortification of the citadel of Mycenae, including the construction of the Lion Gate, to be broadly contemporary and to belong to the LH III period.[48] However, there is some disagreement about the relative chronology:George Mylonas argued that the fortifications began in LH IIIA2 and that the Treasury of Atreus was constructed in LH IIIB1, contemporary with the final phase of fortification,[66] while William Cavanagh and Christopher Mee,[67] along with Elizabeth French, considered that 'Atreus' belongs to the early part of LH IIIA1.
By LH III, Mycenae and nearbyTiryns were the only sites in the Argolid wheretholos tombs were constructed:[68] previously, such tombs had been constructed atDendra, Kazarma, Berbati,Prosymna and Kokla.[69] Scholars generally consider that the Treasury of Atreus was the penultimatetholos constructed at Mycenae, ahead of the Tomb of Clytemnestra.[36][e]
A single sherd beneath the threshold of the tomb dates to LH IIIB middle: this is considered to have come to be there during a later refurbishment of the tomb.[72]
The site of Mycenae is situated in Argolis, in the north-eastern Peloponnese, on the eastern edge of the Argive Plain. The Treasury of Atreus is located to the west side of the modern road leading to the citadel, approximately 500 m south-southwest of the Lion Gate.[73]
The earliest of Mycenae'stholoi were constructed around the Kalkaninecropolis, which had previously been used for the earliest chamber tombs.[73] The Lion and Aegisthus tholoi, by contrast, were built much closer to the acropolis, a trend followed by the later Tomb of Clytemnestra. This creates a division of most of Mycenae's ninetholos tombs into two groups, separated by the Panagia ridge.[74][21] The greater size and elaboration of the tombs nearer the citadel has led to the suggestion that they are 'more royal' than those on the other side of the Panagia ridge,[75] though the chronological concentration of most of thetholoi in LH IIA, the fact that the smaller Cyclopean and Epano Phournostholoi predate the grander Lion and Aegisthus tombs, and the fact that ostentatious burials continued in monumental chamber tombs all problematise a straightforward connection betweentholos tombs and royalty at Mycenae, at least before LH IIB.[76]
The Treasury of Atreus is set alone at the southern edge of a bowl on the Panagia ridge's eastern slope.[78] Prior to its construction, the site was occupied by a building, which was demolished to build thetholos.[23]Michael Boyd has suggested that the tomb's position was intended to 'co-opt the traditions of the past without directly competing with the present',[73] since most contemporary burials were made inchamber tombs further from the acropolis.[73] David Mason has drawn attention to the tomb's position alongside a likely Mycenaean route to the acropolis,[78] which perhaps gave it a protective function,[79] and to the views created both of the citadel from the tomb and of the tomb from the citadel, which he argues would have emphasised the connection between the dead interred in the tomb and the living who held power over Mycenae.[80] James Wright has also suggested that the location may have been selected for the greatest possible impact upon those arriving at Mycenae from the south.[43]
The alignment of thedromos is believed to have reflected topographic considerations — it is aligned perpendicular to the slope of the hill, which would have best facilitated its construction.[81]
The remains of a seventh-century BCEkrater decorated with the image of a horse, found beside the retaining wall of the tumulus, has been taken as evidence of cult activity at the tomb.[82] Unlike the earlier Tomb of Aegisthus and the later Tomb of Clytemnestra,[83] there is little direct evidence of the tomb's use in the post-Mycenaean period, though a bronze pin found in the side chamber and a handful of other bronze objects from the tomb have been suggested as possibly belonging to theGeometric period.[84] In other tombs of Mycenae, post-Mycenaean finds which are not associated with burials have been interpreted as signs ofhero cult.[85] Remains of this period intholos tombs have been seen as a means for the short-livedArgive colony at Mycenae, established in the 3rd century BCE but abandoned within a century,[86] to assert its connection with Mycenae's mythological heroes and so its status and prestige in relation to Argos.[86][87]
In the 19th century, a local tradition believed that the tomb had been once explored by theagha of the nearby village of Karvati, who took from it a bronze lamp.[88] The first securely-documented entrance to the tomb was undertaken by the British aristocrat Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin. In 1801, Elgin had tasked his draughtsman,Giovanni Battista Lusieri, and Philip Hunt, a chaplain to the British embassy in Greece, to investigate various archaeological sites in Greece with a view to finding antiquities that might be taken back to Britain.[89] Hunt visited Mycenae in August, and reported the Treasury of Atreus as 'a most stupendous conical subterranean building, quite entire, called by some antiquaries the Tomb of Agamemnon, by others the Royal Treasury of Mycenae'.[90] Hunt also noted that the tomb was not intact, but open to the elements, and that 'floods of rain' and ingress of debris had made access difficult.[91]
Elgin visited on 8 May 1802, crawling, as his wifeMary attested in a letter to her mother, through the tomb's relieving triangle.[92] He asked thevoivode ofNafplio to clear the tomb, which was completed by Elgin's return to Mycenae on the 12th:[93] the voivode presented him with fragments of pottery vases, ornamental stonework and a marble vase found within.[94] Elgin also had parts of the columns flanking the doorway removed and shipped to England,[93] along with the fragmentarygypsum reliefs of bulls,[95] and architectural drawings made of the tomb bySebastiano Ittar.[96]
In June 1810, Veli Pasha, the OttomanPasha of theMorea, excavated the monument.[f] He cleared most of the entrance to the tomb[98] and entered the chamber with ladders; according toHeinrich Schliemann's later publication of his own excavations at Mycenae, he discovered 'bones covered with gold', as well as gemstones and other gold and silver objects.[99] Veli Pasha sold some artefacts to the BritishMPs and antiquariansJohn Nicholas Fazakerley andHenry Gally Knight, and removed four large fragments of thesemi-engaged columns beside the doorway. One of the fragments — last seen in 1815 — became part of amosque inArgos; Veli Pasha gave the others as a gift toHowe Browne, 2nd Marquess of Sligo, who visited him shortly after the excavations and gave him two fourteen-poundercannons in exchange.[100][g] Sligo described the columnar fragments as 'trifles', but had them shipped to his estate atWestport House inCounty Mayo,Ireland, where they were discovered in a basement by his grandson,George Browne, in 1904. George Browne offered them for 'public benefit' to the British Museum, to be combined with the fragments taken by Elgin and given in 1816 to the museum,[101] in exchange for replicas of the reconstructed columns; they entered the museum in 1905.[102]
Heinrich Schliemann may have explored the tomb during his brief, illegal excavations of Mycenae in 1874.[h] In 1876, he excavated in the side chamber, finding a small pit of unknown purpose;[105] Alan Wace later suggested that it was the base for a column which was never put in.[106] Between 1876 and 1879, Panagiotis Stamatakis cleared the debris from thedromos and entrance of the tomb,[103] recovering fragments of sculpture believed to have come from the relieving triangle.[28]
In 1920 and 1921, archaeologists of theBritish School at Athens under Alan Wace made small-scale excavations in the tomb for the purposes of establishing its date,[19] including a trench in thedromos.[107] During the campaigns of 1920–1923, which had originally intended to excavate the seven thus-far unexcavatedtholoi (that is, all except 'Atreus' and 'Clytemnestra'), Wace had the first architectural plans of the tomb drawn up byPiet de Jong.[61]
Another effort was made in 1939, where Wace dug trenches on the outside of thedromos in line with the façade and beyond the eastern end of thedromos. Wace found that the façade and dromos were bonded together, showing that they were constructed together, and that thedromos had not previously been any larger than its present dimensions.[108] The 1939 excavation also showed that thedromos had been dug through the so-called 'Bothros deposit', which included LH IIIA1 material, providing aterminus post quem for its construction.[65]
In 1955, Wace dug trial trenches in the area around the tomb,[109] containing large quantities of Mycenaean potsherds, which have been interpreted (in line with similar contemporary deposits at the Tomb of Clytemnestra) as offerings made to the tomb's occupants.[110][109]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
| Tholos tombs |
|     |
|---|---|---|
| Grave circles | ||
| Citadel | ||
| Archaeologists and excavators | ||
37°43′37″N22°45′14″E / 37.72682°N 22.75387°E /37.72682; 22.75387
.jpg)
