The Shaft

Graves

Hannah Sykes Savvas Kousidis

Panagia Tomb
Discovered and excavated in 1887 by Tsounta, however he didnt find
anything
The site was revisited in 1922 by Alan Wace who found various
potsherds in both the Dromos and the Tholos
There were only fragments from the LH2 and LH3 period found,
nothing from Late Helladic 1

Wace makes a point of noting the lack of evidence to suggest any of

the pottery found is originally from the tomb.

Group 2
Wace placed the different Tholos tombs into groups. The Panagia
Tomb was put into group 2 along with Kato Phournos and the Lion
Tomb. They each have constructional features that allow them to be
put together. These include:
The Dromoi is lined with limestone rubble
The Stormion is built from hammer-dressed blocks rather than blocks
cut with a saw

What skills were needed to build it?

peculiar nicks mark the inner lintel and suggest they were using
ropes to manoeuvre the slabs into position
poros pilasters used as the frame also have hammer and chisel marks
dromos cut from the bedrock
beehive style - vaulted dome shape in inner body of tomb

AEGISTHUS THOLOS TOMB

Tomb of Aegisthus is one of the nine tholoi. It was
discovered in November 1892 and partially investigated
by Christos Tsountas in 1893. The tomb was further
explored in 1922 and 1953-4 by the British School at
Athens and subsequently by the Greek Archaeological
Service in 1955 and 1958. The last carried out too the last
most recent work in 1997-8.
The tomb of Aegisthus, with a diameter of 13,96m, is the
fourth largest Tholos tomb in Aegean, surpass only by the
tomb of Atreus and the Lion tomb, which can be found both
in Mycenae.
Taking into consideration the structural development of the
Mycenae Tholos tombs according to Wace the Aegisthus
tomb is in the First Group of the tombs of Mycenae (
according to their date of construction).

Location
The Aegisthus tomb is located
just to the SSW of the Citadel
walls and Grave circle A. It lies
within the limits of the Middle
Helladic ( Prehistoric)
cemetery.

How much effort did it take to build?

Tholos tombs are probably the most impressive buildings of the
Mycenaean civilization and not only in terms of dimensions, but also
on account of the amount of time and the number of workers
necessary for their construction.
At Aegisthus Tholos tomb, for instance, we can see that exclusive of
the dromos, the chamber of the Tholos required the removal of 1,810
cubic meters of earth and bedrock. Adding in the dromos would bring
the total to 2,395 cubic meters, a job requiring the same ten men to
dig for 240 days. And still the tomb would not have been built.

What skills were needed to build it?

Its construction required the gathering of
suitable rubble stone their transport and
dressing and the technical skills of specialized
masons in the construction of the dromos, walls
and corbelled vault. The tomb required in
addition a high technical skill that is much more
difficulty to master, because it implies
knowledge and experience in the field of non
directly observable reality. It is far from evident,
indeed to conceive and to build a circular
structure that has to be covered with a beehive
dome.

What kind of people were buried in?

Burial in tholoi is seen as replacing burial in shaft graves. The care
taken to preserve the shaft graves testifies that they were by then
part of the royal heritage, the tombs of the ancestral heroes. Being
more visible, the tholoi all had been plundered either in antiquity, or
in later historic times, therefore it is very difficult to understand the
content that existed there.

What was found in the tomb?

Pottery
Around the area many materials from the Classical Era.

REFERENCES FOR AEGISTHUS TOMB

1.

http://www.mesogeia.net/trip/mycenae/mykaigisthos_en.html (pic)

2.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/48672773 (pic )

3.

the construction of the aegisthus tholos tomb at Mycenae and the "Helladic Heresy" - Yannis
Galanakis Publication: The Annual of the British School at Athens Volume
102 Pages 239-256

4.

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/66456535(pic)

5.

Power and Architecture. Monumental Public Architecture in the Bronze Age Near East and
Aegean Year: 2007 pg 120-121 and 122-3

6.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~prehistory/aegean/?page_id=209(pic)

7.

Negotiating the Past in the Past: Identity, Memory, and Landscape in Archaeological Research,
Norman Yoffee University of Arizona Press, 2007 pg 89-90

8.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycenae#Late_Helladic_II_.28LHII.29