Source A: the Treasury of Atreus at Mycenae (about 1250 BC, though some date it earlier), whose facade is shown in Figure 1. A dromos about 36 m long, lined with walls of cut stone, leads to a doorway over 5 m high, roofed by two huge lintel blocks, the inner one weighing about 120 tonnes. The facade was decorated with half-columns and carved stone panels. Inside, the corbelled chamber is about 14.5 m across and 13 m high; for over a thousand years it was the largest dome in the world.
To what extent were tholos tombs built to impress the living rather than to honour the dead? Use Source A as a starting point and your own knowledge.
Model answer
Source A suggests that tholos tombs were built on a scale meant to impress. The Treasury of Atreus has a dromos about 36 m long lined with cut stone, a doorway over 5 m high under a lintel weighing about 120 tonnes, and a decorated facade with half-columns and carved panels. Its corbelled chamber, 14.5 m across and 13 m high, was the largest dome in the world for over a thousand years. Moving such stones needed huge numbers of workers and great engineering skill, so the tomb advertised the wealth and power of the ruling family. The other tholoi at Mycenae, the Tombs of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, stand close to the approach to the citadel, and their earth mounds would have been visible landmarks.
However, there is evidence that honouring the dead was just as important. After a funeral the dromos was usually filled in with earth, so the decorated facade could only be seen during funerals - by mourners honouring the dead - rather than by every passer-by. Inside, the chamber was dark and sealed, and it was designed as a lasting home for the royal dead and their grave goods, such as the gold cups found in the tholos at Vapheio. Tholoi were reopened for later burials of the same family, which shows care for ancestors over generations, and toasts drunk and cups broken in the dromos were rituals for the dead.
In reality the two purposes overlapped. A magnificent funeral and tomb honoured the dead king, but by honouring royal ancestors the living ruler also showed his own power and legitimacy.
Overall, tholos tombs were to a large extent built to impress the living, but they did so through honouring the dead, so the statement creates a false choice: they were monuments to a dynasty, both past and present.
Explanation
Strong answers use the scale and decoration of the Treasury of Atreus as evidence of display, but also use the filled-in dromos, sealed chamber, grave goods and reuse as evidence of honouring the dead, and recognise that the purposes overlap. A purely descriptive account of the tomb cannot go above Level 2.
