Treasury of Atreus

From Tiryns we drove the few miles on to ancient Mycenae, parking for the night at the Treasury of Atreus, a tholos (round) tomb, a tumulus, sort of, but with a monumental beehive stone structure beneath. We toured it the next morning, and then did Mycenae, a few hundred yards up the hill, and its museum. All this is Bronze Age, 16th-12th centuries BC, the stuff of Homer. Well, the stuff Homer wrote about, centuries later. Mycenae was Agamemnon's home town. Also Clytemnestra's, et al. And Pelops, too.

Entrance to the Treasury of Atreus, also called, fancifully, Agamemnon's Tomb; 
again, the stones are huge although more finely dressed at Mycenae

Inside the beehive; nothing was found here nor in other tholos tombs in the area; 
they are fairly conspicuous and have been used by shepherds and others for aeons...
just as soon as the Mycenean world collapsed in the 12th century BC, I speculate

The enormous doorway

Vicki poses for scale; the tomb is immense

As do I, by the doorway; the lintel measures 28x23x5 feet, 
130 tons; Cylcopean indeed; the triangular space above it 
is characteristically Mycenean, devised to reduce the weight 
the lintel carries