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The Construction of the Aegisthus Tholos Tomb at Mycenae and the ‘Helladic Heresy’1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Yannis Galanakis
Yannis Galanakis
Affiliation:
Keble College, Oxford
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Abstract

The article examines the importance of the Aegisthus tholos tomb in the formation of the tripartite chronological scheme of the Mycenae tholos tombs by A. J. B. Wace. The scheme is assessed in the light of the epistemological debate between Wace and Evans concerning the nature and extent of Minoan influence on mainland Greece in the early Late Bronze Age. It is here suggested that the two-phase construction identified by Wace in the Aegisthus tholos contributed significantly to the establishment of the structural development of the Mycenae tholoi, an important point against Evans's views on the subject. The two-phase construction is re-visited with a view to highlight its importance in Wace's scheme but more significantly to shed light on the planning and execution of the Aegisthus tomb. While the two-phase construction cannot altogether be dismissed, it is suggested that the ashlar façade of the Aegisthus tomb was not an afterthought, as is largely maintained, but a preplanned action and part of the tomb's original design.

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Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 102 , November 2007 , pp. 239 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 2007

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References

2 Iakovidis, Sp. and French, E., The Mycenae Archaeological Atlas (The Archaeological Society at Athens Library, 229; Athens, 2003), 52Google Scholar, no. D4D (with a short description and references). For the discovery see Tsountas, Chr., ‘Mykenai’, PAE 1892, 56–7Google Scholar; id., Μυκῆναι καὶ Μυκηναῖος Πολιτισμός (Athens, 1893), 129; however, the Aegisthus tomb might have already been noted in 1842 by Welcker (Iakovidis and French 52).

3 Palyvou, C. and Kapokakis, E. S., ‘Deformations of the Mycenaean tholos tomb of Aigisthos, Greece’, in Marinos, P., Koukis, G., Tsiambaos, G., and Stournaras, G. (eds), Engineering Geology and the Environment: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Engineering Geology and the Environment, Athens 23–27 June 1997 (Rotterdam, 1997), 3223–7Google Scholar.

4 For the measurements of the Mycenae tholos tombs I have used Kamm 2000.

5 Piet de Jong's plan suggests a diameter of c. 13 m. It should be noted that about two-thirds of the tomb were excavated in 1922 accounting for de Jong's somewhat inaccurate plan; the remaining one-third was not excavated until the 1950s.

6 Originally the dome would have stood at c. 13–13.50 m.

7 For early Late Bronze Age Mycenae see French, E. and Shelton, K., ‘Early Palatial Mycenae’, in Dakouri-Hild, A. and Sherratt, S. (eds), Autochthon: Papers presented to O. T. P. K. Dickinson on the Occasion of his Retirement (BAR S1432; Oxford, 2005), 175–84Google Scholar.

8 Wace 1922.

9 Koehl 1990, 49.

10 Arthur Evans contributed £100 (around £4,000 in today's prices) towards the cost of excavation of the Aegisthus tomb (letters from Wace to Evans: 24 Feb. and 20 Mar. 1922, Evans Archive, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). From the letters we learn that R. B. Seager contributed the same amount and that Lord Abercromby had promised £50 on his part.

11 MacGillivray, J. A., Minotaur: Sir Arthur Evans and the Archaeology of the Minoan Myth (London, 2000), 273Google Scholar.

12 Blegen, C. W. and Wace, A. J. B., ‘The pre-Mycenaean pottery of the Mainland’, BSA 22 (1916–1918), 188–9Google Scholar. See also Blegen, C. W., Korakou: A Prehistoric Settlement near Corinth (New York, 1921)Google Scholar, where the differences between ‘Helladic’ and ‘Minoan’ during the LBA are further emphasized.

13 One can perhaps trace the roots of the problem in W. Ridgeway's critique of the role of the ‘Mycenaeans’, particularly in relation 10 the origin of the ‘Greeks’: ‘What people produced the objects called Mycenaean?’, JHS 16 (1986), 77–119Google Scholar. Wace, who was one of Ridgeway's students, in the introduction to the second volume of The Early Age of Greece criticized the metamorphosis of the ‘Mycenaean’ civilization into ‘Minoan’ in scholarly tradition after the discoveries by Evans in Crete (Wace 1931a). It is a well-known fact, for example, that Evans used the term ‘Mycenaean’ to describe the finds from Knossos for the first two excavation seasons, but gradually replaced it by his preferred term, ‘Minoan’; see Karadimas, N. and Momigliano, N., ‘On the term “Minoan” before Evans's work in Crete (1894)’, SMEA 46. 2 (2004), 243–58Google Scholar.

14 Wace, A. J. B., ‘Excavations at Mycenae’, TLS 24 June 1920, 398Google Scholar.

15 Evans did not have to wait for Wace's TLS report; he was informed about the new developments by Wace himself through a polite personal letter (12 May 1920, Evans Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford).

16 Evans, A. J., ‘The New Excavations at Mycenae’, TLS 15 July 1920, 454Google Scholar.

17 Evans 1925, 45, n. 1; id., PM iv (London, 1935), 293.

18 Evans's ideas about the shaft graves and the tholos tombs were presented in a paper delivered at the British Association in Oxford in 6 Aug. 1926, twice published independently in 1926 and 1929, the latter time with wide distribution: Evans, A. J., The Shaft Graves and Bee-Hive Tombs of Mycenae and their Inter-Relations (London, 1929)Google Scholar. These reiterated an old theory first put forward by Percy Gardner in 1877: Gardner, P., New Chapters in Greek History (London, 1892), 77Google Scholar. See also Evans's most fervent exponent: Myres, J. L., Who were the Greeks? (Berkeley, 1930)Google Scholar; id., ‘The Cretan Labyrinth: a retrospective of Aegean research’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 63 (1933), 298–9.

19 Tsountas, Μυκῆναι (n. 2), 143. Karo had long expressed his disagreement with Evans's views (letter from Karo to Evans, 27 Aug. 1920, Evans Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford); also Karo, G., Die Schachtgräber von Mykenai (Munich, 1930)Google Scholar and MacGillivray, , Minotaur (n. 11), 274–5Google Scholar.

20 Evans, A. J., ‘Introduction’, in Ludwig, E., Schliemann of Troy (London, 1931), 15Google Scholar. It is interesting to note that the old term ‘Mycenaean’ had now acquired a different meaning ‘admirably suited to express the mainland civilization under dominating Cretan influence’ (Droop 1926, 44); thus Evans 1925, 45, n. 1 observes with great disappointment that ‘the name Mycenaean, which was already to hand and is generally intelligible should thus be discarded’ in favour of ‘Helladic’. For the early reception of ‘Helladic’ see also Koehl 1990, 48–9.

21 Evans (n. 16).

22 Wace, A. J. B., ‘The Treasury of Atreus’, Antiquity, 14 (1940), 236CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 For which see Evans 1925; id., Shaft Graves (n. 18); id., ‘Introduction’ (n. 20), 9–21; id., ‘Knossos and Mycenae: the great cleavage of LM II and evidences of the continued reaction of Minoan Crete on the “Mycenaean” world after the fall of the Palace’, Proceedings of the First International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (London, 1934), 192–4; also in brief letters published in The Times (e.g. 8 Apr. 1924, 10; 7 Aug. 1926, 6; 10 Nov. 1926, 9; 24 Nov. 1932). For Wace's views: Wace, A. J. B., ‘Early Aegean Civilization’, CAH i (Cambridge, 1923), 589–615Google Scholar; id., ‘Crete and Mycenae’, CAH ii. 2 (Cambridge, 1924), 431–72; id., ‘The date of the Treasury of Atreus’, JHS 46 (1926), 110–20; id. 1931 a; 1931 b; id., ‘Mycenae 1939’, JHS 59 (1939), 210–12; id., ‘The Treasury of Atreus’, Antiquity, 14 (1940), 233–49; id. 1949. Evans's interest in the subject continued to the last years of his life: Evans, A. J., ‘The chronological place of the vaulted tombs at Knossos, in relation to those of Ras Shamra’, Man, 37 (1937), 187–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The discovery of the Kephala tholos in 1939 and Hutchinson's dating of the tomb to the Neopalatial period sparked one last debate, though less intense and with a different significance this time: see Preston, L., ‘The Kephala Tholos at Knossos: a study in the reuse of the past’, BSA 100 (2005), 67–8Google Scholar.

24 Wace 1922.

25 Wace 1921–3, 393–6.

26 Ibid. 387–93, 396–7; note the change in the position of the ‘Genii’ tholos in Group III as between the 1921–3 report and Wace 1949, 16–18, on which see also Wace 1931b, 141–2.

27 Wace 1949, 16.

28 Wace 1921–3, 320; similar comments throughout his report, e.g. ibid. 292: ‘the style of its construction is far more important as a criterion’. McDonald describes Wace's reasoning as ‘almost Euclidean’: McDonald, W. A. and Thomas, C. G., Progress into the Past: The Rediscovery of Mycenaean Civilization (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1990), 262Google Scholar.

29 Wace 1921–3, 285: ‘Still more so should the architectural parallels of Crete be used with great caution, since the whole environment of the Minoan civilization in that island was different from that prevailing at Mycenae and on the mainland.’

30 Wace 1931b, 143; Persson, A. W., The Royal Tombs at Dendra near Midea (Lund, 1931), 23–6Google Scholar.

31 Pelon 1976, 380–91, assessing Wace's groupings and stressing the difficulty in establishing the date of the tholos tombs based solely on typological considerations.

32 For example see the discussion on the recently discovered tholos tombs at Galatas near Poros: Konsolaki-Yannopoulou, E., ‘Η Μαγούλα Γαλατά της Τροιζηνίας ένα νέο ΜΕ-ΨΕ κέντρο στον Σαρωνικό in Konsolaki-Yannopoulou, E., Αργοσαρωνικός Πρακτικά του Διεθνούς Συνεδρίου Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας του Αργοσαρωνικού Πόρος 26–29 Ιουνίου 1998, ττόμος A (Athens, 2003), 159–228Google Scholar. The most thorough attempt to classify all known tholoi according to Wace's scheme was made by Wiesner, J. in Grab und Jenseits (Berlin, 1938)Google Scholar. However, Wiesner was aware of the difficulties of such a task and questioned the chronological validity of the scheme outside Mycenae (ibid. 77).

33 Droop 1926; see also Blegen, C. W. and Wace, A. J. B., ‘Pottery as evidence for trade and colonization in the Aegean Bronze Age’, Klio, 32 (1939), 131–47Google Scholar; Pendlebury, J. D. S., The Archaeology of Crete (London, 1939)Google Scholar. For other, more recent, reviews of the debate see Horwitz, S. L., The Find of a Lifetime: Sir Arthur Evans and the Discovery of Knossos (London, 1981), 215–19Google Scholar; Koehl 1990; McDonald and Thomas (n. 28), 258–72, 280–91.

34 Droop 1926, 44, where he also comments that ‘we need not doubt that in the long run truth—on whichever side it lies—will prevail.’

35 Ibid. 46. Cf. Hogarth, D. G., ‘Knossos. Review of The Palace of Minos, vol. 1’ TLS 29 Dec. 1921, 809Google Scholar: ‘the explorer of Knossos carries far more guns’ than his Mycenae counterpart; also Evans's comment that Wace writes like ‘a pettifogging lawyer’: Koehl 1990, 50.

36 Droop 1926, 48.

37 Lamb's notes, perhaps a tidy copy of something else, may have been the result of a dinner-table discussion early in the excavation season just before work started on Aegisthus. Lamb acted as second-in-command in the 1922 season at Mycenae. See Gill, D. W. J., ‘Winifred Lamb: her first year as a student at the British School at Athens’, in Hamilton, S., Whitehouse, R. D., and Wright, K. I. (eds), Archaeology and Women: ancient and modern issues (Walnut Creek (C4), 2007), 55–75Google Scholar; Hood, R., Faces of Archaeology in Greece: Caricatures of Piet de Jong (Oxford, 1998), 72Google Scholar. I should like to thank Amalia Kakissis for her help in the BSA Archives, Lisa French for discussing Lamb's chart with me, and David Gill for sending me a copy of his article prior to publication.

38 See Wace's comment at the beginnning of the article; also Wace 1921–3, 388.

39 Wace 1921–3, 393–4.

40 Wace 1921–3, 300, 388; id., ‘Mycenae in Tutankhamen's time: British excavations’, Illustrated London News, 31 Mar. 1923, 525; id. 1949, 16, 38–9; Mylonas, G. E., Ancient Mycenae: The Capital City of Agamemnon (London, 1957), 97, 163Google Scholar; Pelon 1976, 161, 304–5 n. 1, 320.

41 Apart from the poros façade, large rectangular poros ashlar blocks were also found against the chamber walls; according to Wace 1921–3, 302 n. 1, ‘these may have been the remains of a bench running round the base of the wall of the tholos’. Pelon 1976, 344 nn. 5–6 compares them with those from Kato Englianos tomb III, while Blegen envisaged a ‘ring’ similar to that in the Clytemnestra tholos: Blegen, C. W., Rawson, M., Taylour, W., and Donovan, W. P., The Palace of Nestor, vol. III: Acropolis and Lower Town. Tholoi and Grave Circle. Chamber Tombs. Discoveries outside the Citadel (Princeton, 1973), 78Google Scholar.

42 The foundation of small stones is not limited to the piers but extends to the area in front of the façade and the stomion. It appears to be limited to the area of the ashlar façade, though further exploration is needed to clarify its original extent. Wace noted that the anastylosis pier, built by the Greek Archaeological Service in 1915 against the east side of the rubble stomion, rested on loose earth (as did the rubble stomion) and on stones (Wace, n. 8). Could the stones suggest that the rubble foundation may have covered the entire length of the stomion? Furthermore, the rubble masonry of the dromos, the dromos floor, and the rubble stomion were mortared with tough yellow clay as were the rubble foundation and the ashlar façade (1921–3, 297–8). To complicate things further a depression is shown in de Jong's section running from the paved area just in front of the ashlar façade to about 4 m inside the chamber. Pelon 1976, 325–6 compared it with the depression channels found in some LH I–II A tholos tombs in Messenia. The relationship between the depression and the ashlar façade is unclear. Wace discussed the depression at the stomion, where the stone foundation is, in relation to the construction of the ashlar façade. He considered the part of the depression, inside the chamber, a funerary cist ‘lined with big blocks of stone packed tight with yellow clay’ (Wace 1921–3, 301; see also Wace 1949, 39).

43 Wace 1921–3, 300: ‘It has been suggested that the successor of the King who built this tomb, instead of erecting another for himself, was content to improve the tholos of his father.’ Similar comments in Wace 1922, arguing that the construction of Aegisthus should be dated in LH II (‘the beginning of the 15th c. B.C.’) and the façade, although added at some later date, ‘was decided either by the King who had built this tomb for himself or by his successors in his honour’; so in theory, even if two phases were to be discerned, they belonged to the same period and were attached to the same ruler in Wace's view.

44 Evans dated the Aegisthus tomb in LM Ib and LM Ic according to his dating and terminology, although some ‘MM III and a few LM Ia’ sherds were also found (PM iv. 244 n. 1). Droop provided Evans with extensive notes and sketches of the pottery found in the Aegisthus tomb. They are now stored in the Evans Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

45 The outermost lintel block, now missing, sat on the ashlar façade. However, it is unclear whether the missing block carried the opening of the triangle or not (thus linking the other lintel blocks and subsequently the vault with the missing block).

46 ‘Evans Knossos 1924’ notebook (no. 44), 9 (Evans Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford).

47 Gasche and Servais 1971, 47–8. Parenthetically, it is interesting to note that the absence of a triangle became part of a folk tradition according to which the tomb of Aegisthus did not have an ‘opening’ in order to keep the wicked spirit of Aegisthus imprisoned: Tritsch, F. J., ‘False doors on tombs’, JHS 63 (1943), 114CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 See also Pelon 1976, 161 n. 3; 313 nn. 4–5; 389 n. 4. Once you know that the triangle exists, it is easy to trace its outline from the inside as well (both at the Thorikos and Aegisthus tombs).

49 Iakovidis 2001, 20–1 mentions some Late Mycenaean sherds found in the triangle along with a fragment of a bronze knife, an ivory pin, and a clay bull figurine. He considers the material intrusive and agrees with Wace in dating the construction of the tomb to LH I/II early. According to Kim Shelton, the pottery from the triangle dates to late in LH III B and is probably a result of the earthquake at that time (which might have caused the collapse of the tomb). Along with the ceramic material, a female figurine was found right above the exterior lintel block, which Shelton considers part of later dump on top of the destruction debris. I should like to thank her for sharing this information with me.

50 For the Aegisthus triangle see Iakovidis 2001; also French, E., Mycenae. Agamemnon's Capital (Stroud, 2002)Google Scholar, fig. 22.

51 Aegisthus triangle (according to Iakovidis 2001): L. (pres.) 3.90 m; L. (top) 1.75 m; W. (lintel block level) 2 m; H. 1.80 m.

52 I should like to thank Kim Shelton for clarifying this point for me.

53 Iakovidis 2001; similar comments in French (n. 50), 41.

54 Note that the projection of the façade of Ano Englianos tholos IV and Peristeria 1 is due to the modern reconstruction of the dome.

55 The fascia is not, however, a conclusive criterion for the existence of an outermost, now missing, lintel block. There are a few instances in rock-cut chamber tombs where the fascia does not continue to the level of the lintel.

56 It is difficult to determine the number of missing lintel blocks on the basis of the width of the uncovered part of the stomion. In the Argive Heraion tholos, for example, the outermost lintel block carrying the fascia is very wide, while in the Lion tholos at Mycenae, the same block is much narrower in relation to the other lintel blocks of the stomion. In those cases where such a lintel block has survived, it covers almost entirely the length of the façade (see e.g. the Argive Heraion). What appears to be rather unusual in the case of the Aegisthus tomb is the quality of workmanship in the lintel blocks. Usually this is more or less the same in all lintel blocks, with the outermost block receiving perhaps the best treatment. If we accept that the outermost block A in the Aegisthus tomb was a well-finished block, then the difference in the treatment between this block and the other three would be somewhat exceptional, emphasizing further on the experimental character of the architecture of the Aegisthus tomb.

57 Wace 1921–3, 298; id. 1949, 39 and Pelon 1976, 161, 482–3 have hinted at the existence of a possible fourth (outermost) lintel block, without, however, assessing the implications further.

58 It should be noted that Piet de Jong had a tendency to produce ‘enhanced’ architectural plans not always accurately following the actual architectural condition of the Mycenae tombs. This tendency is also notable in his plans of the tomb of Aegisthus.

59 According to Kim Shelton (pers. comm.) the stones on the current exterior lintel block are probably part of the collapse debris and not a blocking wall because they are not in line and there is no yellowish clay (pace Iakovidis 2001, 20–1, FIG. 3). Iakovidis 2001, 18 maintains the two-phase construction of the Aegisthus tomb. For this reason he places the end of the triangle over lintel block B, the outermost surviving block (ibid., FIG. 3). However, there appears to be no evidence suggesting that the triangle actually ended there. I should like to thank Clairy Palyvou for this information.

60 Loader, N. C., Building in Cyclopean Masonry (Jonsered, 1998), 158Google Scholar.

61 Another tendency can also be observed in Group A: most of the tombs with a diameter between 5 and 6.5 m have a stomion length between 2 and 3 m and most of the tombs with a diameter between 6.5 and 9 m tend to have a stomion length between 3 and 4 m.

62 For the sake of consistency I have used the stomion length at ground level. Occasionally it increases (but never decreases) at lintel level; this would account for even smaller ratios. But even in this case, the ratio for the conjectural Phase 1 in the tomb of Aegisthus remains exceptionally high (c. 3.4) and well out of line in relation to the surveyed tombs.

63 The average ratio for the Mycenae tholos tombs is 2.47 (including the Argive Heraion tomb but excluding the Aegisthus tholos); for the other tholos tombs in the Argolid with a diameter over 5 m the ratio is somewhat smaller (2.22).

64 If x is the length of the stomion, then the diameter of the chamber is 2x or 2.5x according to Dobiat, C., ‘Zu den Maßverhältnissen in mykenischen Tholosgräbern’, Beiträge zur ägäischen Bronzezeit, 11 (1982), 7–8Google Scholar, Abb. 3; see also Stupperich, R., ‘Überlegungen zum Fußmaß mykenischer Bauten’, Thetis, 2 (1995), 21–3Google Scholar.

65 Dobiat (n. 64), 6, 9; I should like to thank Clairy Palyvou for discussing this point with me.

66 Kamm 2000.

67 Ibid. 42–3: ‘Die Abmessungen der ersten und zweiten Bauphase sind durch einen zauberhaften Einklang der Maße und Proportionen miteinander verbunden … Der Architekt der Fassade des Aigisthos-Grab (zweite Bauphase) muß die Planung der ersten Phase genau gekannt haben. Der gezeigte Einklang der Maße und Proportionen könnte sonst kaum entstanden sein.’

68 The tomb of Aegisthus was the only tholos at Mycenae excavated, even if somewhat partially, during the 1920–3 campaigns. The other tholos tombs were only ‘…carefully re-examined and for the first time scientifically planned’: Wace, A. J. B., ‘Mycenae: prehistoric palace, shaft-grave area, and beehive tombs. 2800–1150 BC’, in British Archaeological Discoveries in Greece and Crete, 1886–1936 (London, 1936), 47Google Scholar.

69 Cf. n. 18. It can be argued that the overall debate concerning the nature of the relations between ‘Minoans’ and ‘Mycenaeans’ had as a side-effect the emphasis placed by Evans on LM I–II, and the undervaluation of LM III material. A defensive tone can be discerned in PM ii–iv, although the foundations were laid in vol. i.

70 Wright, J., ‘The social production of space and the architectural production of society in the Bronze Age Aegean during the 2nd millennium BCE’, in Maran, J., Juwig, C., Schwengel, H., and Thaler, U. (eds), Constructing Power: Architecture, Ideology and Social Practice / Konstruktion der Macht: Architektur, Ideologie und soziales Handeln (Geschichte: Forschung und Wissenschaft, 19; Münster, 2006), 58–9Google Scholar.