The treasury of Atreus, for those of you who don't know, is a very famous tholos tomb that is named after the father of Agamemnon. A tholos is the name for a specific type of ancient tomb- they're round, and shaped like a beehive. They're also very cool. (In my blog posts from Crete, I think there is a more complete explanation.)
The treasury of Atreus is cool because it is a huge tholos- you can fit a ton of people inside there- and very complete. This is the dromos, or the road leading up to the tomb- you can see the entrance, and how much taller than all the people it is.
The doorway! That triangle is called a relieving triangle- it distributes the weight of the blocks so that the lintel, which is made with one huge stone, won't crack. It would have been filled in ancient times, and probably decorated- unfortunately, this tomb was found by tomb robbers, and so what remains is really only the stone.
From the inside! You can see how the triangle is filled in.
This is for some idea of scale- that there is the entrance to the tomb. The ceiling is ridiculously high, and there were a ton of people inside the tomb, but it still wasn't too crowded. Unfortunately, a pushy Italian tour guide wasn't allowing us to talk, so we had to remain silent- because of the shape of the tomb, sounds carry very well.
A copy of some of the plays of Aeschylus (in the original Greek!) on the floor of the treasury of Atreus. This was the book that we used when reading the Agamemnon on top of the tomb of Clytemnestra. Yes, it was a bit like a cult initiation. Into the cult of classics.
The treasury of Atreus is cool because it is a huge tholos- you can fit a ton of people inside there- and very complete. This is the dromos, or the road leading up to the tomb- you can see the entrance, and how much taller than all the people it is.
The doorway! That triangle is called a relieving triangle- it distributes the weight of the blocks so that the lintel, which is made with one huge stone, won't crack. It would have been filled in ancient times, and probably decorated- unfortunately, this tomb was found by tomb robbers, and so what remains is really only the stone.
From the inside! You can see how the triangle is filled in.
This is for some idea of scale- that there is the entrance to the tomb. The ceiling is ridiculously high, and there were a ton of people inside the tomb, but it still wasn't too crowded. Unfortunately, a pushy Italian tour guide wasn't allowing us to talk, so we had to remain silent- because of the shape of the tomb, sounds carry very well.
A copy of some of the plays of Aeschylus (in the original Greek!) on the floor of the treasury of Atreus. This was the book that we used when reading the Agamemnon on top of the tomb of Clytemnestra. Yes, it was a bit like a cult initiation. Into the cult of classics.
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