Beehive tomb

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Image:Treasure of Atreus.jpg Beehive tombs, also known as Tholos tombs (plural tholoi), are a style of Mycenaean chamber tomb from the Bronze Age.

Beehive tombs developed from Mycenaean shaft tombs, which first appear around 1600 BC. After about 1500 BC, beehive tombs became more widespread. They were built as corbelled arches, layers of stone and dirt placed closer together as the arch tapers toward the top of the tomb. This style is probably an influence from Minoan tombs. Each tomb usually contains more than one person, in various places in the tomb, and with various grave goods. After a burial, the beehive tomb was covered with dirt, leaving a small mound with most of the tomb underground. They were connected to the surface by a long tunnel, leading to a door consisting of a set of monoliths. Because there are hundreds of such tombs, with more than one associated with each Mycenaean settlement, they were probably not burial places for the aristocracy alone, although the larger tombs, ranging from about 10 meters to about 15 meters in diameter, were likely used for royal burials. The larger tombs presumably contained aristocratic grave goods, but the tombs were pillaged in ancient times. Etruscan tombs were also beehive style with decorated interior.

The earliest stone-built tombs which can be called 'beehive', are in Oman, built of stacked flat stones which occur in nearby geological formations. They date to around 3,500 years BC, to a period when the Arabian peninsular was subject to much more rainfall than now, and supported a flourishing civilisation in what is now desert, to the west of the mountain range along the Gulf of Oman. No burial remains have ever been retrieved from these 'tombs', though there seems no other pupose for their building.de:Tholos fr:Tholos nl:Tholos nn:tholos sv:Tholos