ATRÉE TREASURE
Unesco site of Mycenae. The largest and best-preserved circular vaulted underground tomb of the Mycenaean civilization.
Built around 1250 BC, this circular, vaulted, underground tomb (Θησαυρός Ατρέως/Tisavros Atreos) is the largest and best-preserved of the Mycenaean period. After an imposing 36 m-long dromos (corridor) cut into a tumulus, you have to pass under a 120-ton monolithic lintel to reach the impressive "honeycomb" main hall, 14.6 m in diameter and 13.4 m high. Made of stone blocks, it was used for ceremonies, while the tomb itself was located in a side cavity cut into the rock. The monument was plundered in Antiquity, then by collectors during the Ottoman period. As a result, the painted decoration and precious objects it contained are now scattered among several foreign museums (British Museum, Louvre...). The main room was later used by shepherds, as evidenced by the black marks on the vaulted ceiling of fires lit to heat this improvised shelter. The "Treasure of Atreus" was also misnamed by 19th-century archaeologists. They mistakenly equated it with an ancient "treasure", a type of building designed to store valuable objects. And they attributed the tomb to Atreus, legendary king of Mycenae (or Argos). In mythology, he is the founder of the ill-fated line of the Atrides (murder, parricide, infanticide and incest) and the father of the (unsavory) heroes of the Trojan War, Agamemnon and Menelaus.
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