Thesaurus
（
θησαυρός). The Greek term for a room in which all kinds of
objects, provisions, jewels, etc., were stored; hence a treasury or treasure-house. In
ordinary life the underground storechambers, circular vaulted rooms with an opening above,
similar to our cellars, were thus named. The same name was given to treasure-houses which each
State maintained within the precincts of Panhellenic sanctuaries, as repositories for their
offerings to the gods. Such were those at Olympia and Delphi. The subterranean tombs, shaped
like beehives, and of a construction dating from remote Greek antiquity, which have been found
in various places, have been wrongly described as “treasure-houses.” The
most celebrated of these are the so-called thesaurus of Atreus at Mycenae (see
Cyclopes;
Mycenae), and that of Minyas at Orchomenus (see
Trophonius). The latter is only partly, the former wholly, preserved. The ground-plan
of these structures is circular, and consists of one enclosed room with a domed roof,
constructed of horizontal layers of massive stone blocks, projecting one over the other. This
circular chamber was used probably for service in honour of the dead. The actual resting-place
of the body was a square room adjoining. The large room at Mycenae is fifty feet in diameter,
and about the same in height. It consists of thirteen courses, the uppermost of which was only
a single stone. It was decorated with hundreds of bronze plates, the holes for the nails being
still visible.
