Tomb types
- Created by: Ruthfeath
- Created on: 17-05-18 20:44
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- Tomb types
- Cist
- In isolation/small groups
- Body curled in protracted position
- Floor was prepared floor of river pebbles
- One vase placed with dead
- Present at GCB - contracted burials, poor offerings
- Tholos
- Round, shaped like pointed dome, built into side of hill
- Approached by dromos cut horizontally into slope of hill
- 9 discovered at Mycenae (1500-1200BC)
- In earliest tombs very small stones used - selected for flatness
- Lower part of wall built vertically like drum up to about 1/4 of height
- Vault added through corbelling system
- Earth piled around exterior to create balance -mound formed above tomb
- Later tholoi used increasingly large stones - Treasury of Atreus had enormous blocks
- Treasury of Atreus also had side chamber - unusual
- Doorways developed from small slabs to longer lintels with relieving triangles - improved stability by releasing pressure
- Earlier dromoi were cut into rock and unlined with masonry - they often collapsed, so later ones were lined with rubble, and in the final tholoi ashlar conglomerate was used
- Seepage of water meant that layer of plesia was alternated with earth when covering late tholoi - however, 3 layers were used in Tomb of Aegisthus and the vault still collapsed
- Tomb of Clytemnestra & Treasury of Atreus - curving wall built of poros support mound over tholos
- Lavishly decorated
- Treasury of Atreus - façade embellished with half columns, rosettes, spirals and zigzags with stone being hauled from around 15km away
- Orchomenos - tholos side chamber shows that bronze plates/decorative plaques would have been nailed to interiors - seen on ceiling
- Shaft
- Cut up to 2.5 metres into the rock
- Chamber created at base of shaft by: leaving a rock ledge to support beams of a roof/building a secondary wall to support them/using wooden posts.
- Lined with rubble walls for support
- Fully extended
- Room for several bodies on tomb floor - all at once? successive?
- After burial roof was put in place, shaft filled with earth & grave was marked with 2m stone stele - plain or decorated
- When grave was opened for later burials, fill had to be dug out & timber roof lifted out - gifts fro earlier burials smashed & shoved to one side/mixed into back fill
- GCB - 14 graves
- GCA - 6 large graves, 7th grave outside the wall
- In fashion from 1600-1500BC - last one built at Mycenae in 1500BC, abandoned for tholos type - shaft graves did continue elsewhere for another 100 years.
- Chamber
- Tomb dug out of rock leads down to wall of stones that block entrance - inside is a circular chamber
- People buried in pits/placed directly on floor
- Pottery sherds found in entranceway - feasting/ritual after burial?
- Similar to tholoi, which appeared at similar time - likely used by less wealthy
- Tumulus
- First burial laid on ground & covered with stones, tumulus raised over it.
- Later burials - mound cut through with burials on original surface/in pits/cists/pithoi
- Mound intended to be seen from distance - marked by large stone/stele
- Cist
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