Treasury of Atreus


By: Grayson Glade, Barri Hollingsworth, and Edward Hastings Gilbert

 

Treasury of Atreus

 

[1]

 

     The treasury of Atreus is a beautiful tomb that was originally built underground in around 1300 to 1200 B.C. It is by far the most advanced sculpture and design in the Mycenaean period. This building comes from Mycenae, Greece. It has a seventeen foot high doorway that than leads into the tomb. It is a corbelled-vault, therefore it is unsupported by columns and is built in concenric circles of stone that overlaps a little over every ring. This style of architecture is known as a bee-hive tomb. The post and lintel style entrance features decorative marble lines above it. The tomb has two

chambers with a covered wall passage. The covered wall is 120 feet long and 20 feet wide. One of the chambers is the impressive corbelled vault,and the room to [2]

the right is the actual treasury. It is far smaller than the vault, and all the treasures once contained in this relatively small room were plundered long ago. At its tallest point, the tomb is forty-three feet tall, and reaches 47.5 feet in diameter. Some of the the precisely cut stone used features metal decorations on them. A relieving arch tops the building to help support it.

The Treasury of Atreus is arguably the most architectually advanced structure built by the Mycenaean civilization. It brings new concepts, such as corbelled vaults held together by a single keystone, and it was the firt structure built without using columns or any support like that. The overall work put into this structure shows how much the Mycenaen people respected and cared for their leaders when they died, and that death was seen to be as important, if not more so, than life.

 [3]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Bibliography:

     1.Editors of Time Life Books. Wondrous Realms of the Aegean. Morrison Town: Robert 

          H. Smith, 1993.

     2.Matthews, Kevin, and John Julis Norwich. "Treasury of Atreus." Great Buildings. 

          2 Dec. 2008 <http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/ 

          treasury_of_atreus.html>.

     3.Stokstad, Marylin. Art A Brief History. Upper saddle river: Pearson Educational Inc., 2007.      

 

 

Footnotes

  1. This is a photograph of the Treasury of Atreus. It is a basic outline that shows how this building was originally underground. It also shows outer and inner designs of this building. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Atreus-2.jpg ▲
  2. This image is a photograph of the ceiling of the Treasury of Atreus. This picture shows the &quot;key&quot; stone that holds the entire building together. As well as the modern and highly- advanced usage of the stones and how they were stacked. http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/treasury_of_atreus.html ▲
  3. This is a photograph of the entrance of the Treasury of Atreus. This picture is a representation of how tall and wide the entrance is. The doorway is 17-feet tall. http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/treausry_of_atreus.html ▲