In
some of these holes bronze nails still remain. These must have
served for the attachment of some sort of bronze decoration. The
most careful study of the disposition of the holes has led to the
conclusion that the fourth and fifth courses were completely
covered with bronze plates, presumably ornamented, and that above
this there were rows of single ornaments, possibly rosettes. Fig.
27 will give some idea of the present appearance of this chamber,
which is still complete, except for the loss of the bronze
decoration and two or three stones at the top. The small doorway
which is seen here, as well as in Fig. 26, leads into a
rectangular chamber, hewn in the living rock. This is much smaller
than the main chamber.
At Orchomenus in Boeotia are the ruins of a tomb scarcely inferior
in size to the "Treasury of Atreus" and once scarcely less
magnificent. Here too, besides the "bee-hive" construction, there
was a lateral, rectangular chamber--a feature which occurs only
in these two cases. Excavations conducted here by Schliemann in
1880-81 brought to light the broken fragments of a ceiling of
greenish schist with which this lateral chamber was once covered.
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