Treasury of Atreus

The Treasury of Atreus is the largest and most elaborate of the known Mycenaean tholos tombs [1]. 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 a corbelled dome [1]. The dome was covered with earth to heighten it; some of this mound remains, but erosion has reduced its height and moved its apex towards the west [1]. The dromos of the tomb is oriented east-west and is 36 m long by 6 m wide [1]. For the first 19 metres from the stomion, the sides are dressed with conglomerate stone walls: while the dromoi of earlier tombs had been lined with rubble or poros ashlar, the Treasury of Atreus is the first tomb at Mycenae to be fully lined with conglomerate [1]. The Treasury of Atreus is set alone at the southern edge of a bowl on the Panagia ridge's eastern slope [1]. The first securely-documented entrance to the tomb was undertaken by the British aristocrat Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin [1].