made the wall at Tiryns for Proitos. Among the ruins at Mycenae
is the fountain called Perseia, and some subterranean buildings
belonging to Atreus and his children, where their treasures were
kept. There is the tomb of Atreus, and of those whom Aigisthos
slew at the banquet, on their return from Ilion with Agamemnon....
There is also the tomb of Agamemnon, and that of Eurymedon the
charioteer, and the joint tomb of Teledamos and Pelops, the twin
children of Kassandra, whom Aigisthos slew with their parents while
still mere babes.... Klytemnestra and Aigisthos were buried a little
way outside the walls, for they were not thought worthy to be within,
where Agamemnon lay and those who fell with him.'

Persuaded in his own mind of the truth of this statement, Schliemann,
while clearing the Lion Gate, and investigating the already rifted
tomb known as the Treasury of Atreus, caused a great pit, 113 feet
square, to be dug within the walls at a distance of about 40 feet
from the Lion Gate. With the most extraordinary good fortune he
had hit upon the exact spot which he sought, and had even almost
exactly proportioned his pit to the area within which the treasures
lay. After only a few days' digging, slabs of stone, vertically
placed, began to come to light, and before long a complete double
ring of stone slabs, 87 feet in diameter, was disclosed (Plate
II. 2). Schliemann's first idea was that he had discovered the
Agora of Mycenae, the 'well-polished circle of stones' on which
the elders of the city sat for councilor judgment, as Hephaestos
depicted them on the shield of Achilles; but even this discovery
did not satisfy him; he was resolved to go down to virgin soil
or rock, and his perseverance was rewarded.

First there came into view a circular altar, and several steles
of soft stone with rude carvings in relief, which seemed to point
to interments beneath, and a system of offerings to, or on behalf
of, the dead. Three feet below the altar, and 23 feet below the
surface level, there came to light the top of the first of a group
of five rock-hewn graves. The graves were rectangular, varied in
depth from 10 to 16 feet, and ranged in size from 9 by 10 feet
to 16 by 22 feet. They had been carefully lined with a wall of
small quarry-stones and clay, and roofed over with slate slabs; but
the roofing had broken down, owing to the decay of the beams which
supported it, and the graves were filled with earth and pebbles.
Mingled