Page:Rude Stone Monuments.djvu/59

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Chap. II.
TUMULI.
33

Pausanias.[1] The principal, or at least the best preserved of these, is a circular chamber, 48 feet 6 inches in diameter, covered by a

Rude Stone Monuments 0059a.png

4.
Section and Plan of Tomb of Atreus at Mycenæ. Scale of plan 100 ft. to 1 in.


horizontal vault, and having a sepulchral chamber on one side. Dodwell discovered three others of the five mentioned by Pausanias,[2] and he also explored the sepulchre of Minyas at Orchomenos, which had a diameter of 65 feet.

Another group of tombs, contemporary or nearly so with these, are found in the older cemeteries of the Etrurians at Cœre, Vulci, and elsewhere. One of the largest of these is one called Cocumella, at Vulci, which is 240 feet in diameter, and must originally

Rude Stone Monuments 0059b.png

5.
View of Cocumella, Vulci.


have been 115 to 120 feet in height. Near the centre rise two steles, but so unsymmetrically that it is impossible to understand why they were so placed and how they could have been grouped into anything like a complete design. The sepulchre, too, is placed on one side.


  1. Paus. ii. ch. 16; 'Dodwell's Pelasgic Remains in Greece and Italy,' pl. 11.
  2. Dodwell, l. c. p. 13.