Before that occurred, however, the Bronze Age Greeks had their own styles of burial. Simple inhumations in cist graves generally served in the Early and Middle Bronze Age. A cist grave was a rectangular chamber dug into the ground and lined with slabs of rock to support the shape. A bedding of pebbles could line the floor, and the interred might be laid out in a crouched position, so that a smaller cist would suffice for burial. With the coming of the Mycenaeans (or at least their newfound wealth), a more elaborate style was used, specifically the shaft graves of Mycenae discussed in chapter 4. One might say that these were improved cist graves, in which the cist was deepened and enlarged to accommodate up to three people, and the walls were given additional supports to keep them from falling in upon the dead. Finally, the grave was roofed over with stone. Several such shafts are arranged together in Grave Circles A and B at Mycenae, with the circles themselves covered over with earth and the individual graves marked by sculpted stelai.
But for true ostentation, nothing beat the Mycenaean tholos tombs of the Late Helladic III period. These structures were the result of a natural evolution of the Minoan tholoi. Several smaller tholoi appeared in Greece during the Mycenaean period, all round, all with their roofs (these did have roofs) fallen in. But in the Late Helladic II, these structures took on monumental proportions. One of the later examples, the so-called Treasury of Atreus, for example, measured 15 meters in diameter and in height. The interior was entirely lined with sculpted stone and was originally decorated with gold wall ornaments. A separate, rectangular room jutted off from the circular tholos, where, past a door, the body was laid to rest. Grave robbers were prolific in the Bronze Age (and also in the Victorian era), and every attempt was made by the Greeks to protect the grave and its goods. Despite their attempts, however, nothing now remains of the treasure, but both the side chamber and the tholos were probably filled with elaborate grave goods.
Located 90° from the burial chamber was the tholos entrance, comprising a door almost 10 meters high capped off with a lintel stone weighing several tons. The entire portion of the tholos below the level of the lintel was dug into a hillside, along with a 36-meter-long dromos, or corridor, leading to the entrance. The face of the doorway, as well as the dromos walls, was lined with large, regularly cut, rectangular stones. Above the level of the lintel was the corbel vault, giving the tholos the nickname beehive tomb, as on the interior such corbel vaulting looked like a beehive. This kind of vaulting stayed in place through conflicting pressures—pressure that the cut stones placed on each other, and what the surrounding earth placed on them from above and around. For this reason, it was imperative that the vaulting be buried. If the ground above the capstone eroded away, the capstone eventually fell in, and the entire vault came undone.
On all the walls except the doorway, the corbelling was pretty much continuous from floor to capstone, so no one stone had to bear very much weight. This was not the case with the lintel, however, which had nothing below it for support. To relieve this stone (which is already quite heavy) of some weight, the Mycenaean architects developed the relieving triangle, a hollow triangle directly above the lintel. This triangle was covered with decoration, so as not to be visible from the outside. Of course, grave robbers inevitably knew it was there, and that was the main form of illicit access into the tholoi.
The treasury's fagade was elaborately decorated with sculpted stone imported from Egypt and now on display in the National Museum in Athens. Then, once the entire complex was filled and finished, it was buried, so that only a hill was visible. One might call it a rather inconspicuous form of conspicuous consumption.
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