The Tomb of Clytemnestra is a large Bronze Age tholos, or beehive tomb, standing at Mycenae near the Lion Gate and the grave circles below the citadel walls. It ranks second in size and grandeur only to the Treasury of Atreus. The chamber belongs to a ring of monumental tombs built for the rulers of Mycenae at the height of the site’s power. A long open passage leads to a tall doorway and a domed chamber of corbelled stone. The tomb sits close to the road below the walls and forms part of any close reading of the citadel. Trace this quiet layer of the Argolid with My Greece Tours.
The tomb rewards a slow visit because its scale and structure repay attention rather than a passing glance. Its name comes from later myth, which cast Clytemnestra as the wife and murderer of Agamemnon, yet that story cannot be tied to any real burial in the chamber. What survives is architecture: a passage, a doorway, a relieving triangle and a corbelled dome, with the remains of a later theatre above the entrance. The sections below cover its place among the tombs, its structure, its myth, its later reuse and how it fits a visit through our Mycenae travel guide.
Where does the Tomb of Clytemnestra stand at Mycenae?
The Tomb of Clytemnestra stands near the Lion Gate and the grave circles of Mycenae, close to the road below the citadel walls. It belongs to a ring of monumental tombs built for the rulers of the site.
The tomb sits in the lower ground below the citadel of Mycenae, close to the Lion Gate and within sight of the grave circles that held the earliest royal burials. Its position places it among a ring of monumental tombs raised for the rulers of the site. These beehive chambers spread across the slope beneath the walls at the height of the citadel’s power. The road that carries visitors up to the main gate passes near its open passage, so the tomb reads as part of the wider approach rather than a distant outlier.
This closeness to the gate and the grave circles ties the chamber directly to the working heart of Mycenae, where power, burial and defence gathered on one hillside above the Argolid plain.
Standing at the mouth of the passage, a visitor grasps how these tombs were meant to be seen from the road and the citadel above. The chamber lies dug into the slope, its dome once hidden under an earth mound that rose from the hillside like a low hill of its own. The Lion Gate and its carved beasts guard the citadel entrance a short walk uphill, while Grave Circle B preserves the shaft burials of an earlier age. The Tomb of Clytemnestra belongs to a later, grander stage of the same royal tradition, when rulers were laid in vast domed chambers rather than shaft graves.
Its place on the slope makes the shift in burial style plain to anyone who walks the ground with an eye for sequence and scale.
How is the Tomb of Clytemnestra built?
The tomb has a long open passage, the dromos, leading to a tall doorway and a domed chamber of corbelled stone rings. A relieving triangle sits above the doorway, easing the weight of the wall onto the lintel below.
The structure follows the plan shared by the great tholos tombs of Mycenae, worked here with unusual care and scale. A long open passage, the dromos, cuts straight into the hillside and leads the eye toward a tall doorway framed in dressed stone. Above that doorway sits a relieving triangle, an open gap in the masonry that carries the weight of the wall around the lintel rather than straight down onto it. The triangle once held carved decoration across its face. Past the doorway opens the main chamber, a tall dome built from rings of corbelled stone, each course stepped slightly inward until the rings close overhead.
The whole chamber was then buried under an earth mound, so the finished tomb read from outside as a rounded rise on the slope.
The corbelled dome is the feature that draws the eye and the admiration inside the chamber. Rather than a true arch, the builders laid ring upon ring of stone, each edging inward over the one below until the gap at the top could be closed with a single capping block. The technique demands precise cutting and a sure sense of load, and the survival of the dome across the centuries speaks to the skill behind it. This tomb ranks second in size and grandeur only to the Treasury of Atreus, the largest and finest of the Mycenaean beehive tombs.
Reading the two together shows the height that this form of royal burial reached in the Argolid before the citadels fell and the tradition passed out of use.
Who was Clytemnestra and why does her name attach to the tomb?
Clytemnestra belongs to later Greek myth as the wife and murderer of Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae. Her name was fixed to the tomb long after it was built and cannot be tied to any real burial in the chamber.
The name carried by the tomb comes from myth rather than from record, and the distinction matters for anyone reading the site honestly and with care. Later Greek tradition made Clytemnestra the wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and told how she killed him on his return from the long war at Troy. Travellers and antiquarians of a later age, steeped in that story, attached her name to this great tholos as they attached the name of Atreus to the largest tomb standing nearby.
No inscription, burial or find ties the chamber to Clytemnestra or to any named ruler, so the label reflects legend laid over stone rather than a recovered fact about who was laid to rest within the dome. The honest reading keeps the myth and the masonry apart, and the tomb stands the stronger for it.
This gap between myth and evidence runs through the whole of Mycenae and gives the site much of its pull. The tomb stands as real architecture from the Bronze Age, raised for a ruler whose name is lost. The myth of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon belongs to a body of story shaped centuries later and carried in epic verse and tragedy. Visitors gain most by holding the two apart: admiring the dromos, doorway and dome as the work of Mycenaean builders, while treating the royal names as a later layer of meaning draped over the ruins.
The stone is old and certain; the story is old too, but of a different kind, and it cannot fix a burial to a chamber the way an inscription would.
What later use was made of the Tomb of Clytemnestra?
In later Greek times a small theatre was built over the entrance to the tomb, and its remains survive above the doorway. The reuse shows how the ground was worked after the Bronze Age chamber left memory.
Long after the tholos ceased to serve as a royal tomb, the slope above its entrance was put to fresh use, and the trace of that later work still reads on the ground. The remains of a small theatre, built in later Greek times, survive above the doorway of the chamber, set directly over the buried passage below. A theatre raised on this spot tells its own story. The earth mound over the dome had settled into the hillside, the memory of the burial had faded, and the ground was level and useful for a public building.
This overlay of one age upon another is common across Greek sites, yet it reads with special force here, above a chamber once sealed for a Bronze Age ruler of the Argolid.
Seeing the theatre and the tomb together sharpens the sense of depth that makes Mycenae worth a careful visit. One structure sits over the other, separated by centuries, each speaking for the world that raised it, and the join between them is plain to a visitor who looks up from the passage mouth. A broader account of the site and its full sequence of monuments runs through our how to visit Mycenae guide. That account sets the tomb among the gate, the walls, the grave circles and the other chambers.
The layering here is not decoration but plain evidence, a clear record of how the same hillside carried burial, then theatre, then the long silence of ruin before study and travel brought it back into view.
How does the tomb fit a wider visit to Mycenae?
The Tomb of Clytemnestra sits close to the road below the walls and forms a natural stop on the way up to the citadel. It pairs with the Treasury of Atreus, the grave circles and the Lion Gate.
The tomb earns its place on any thorough visit through position as much as through scale. It stands close to the road below the walls, so the walk up toward the Lion Gate passes near its open passage without any long detour. Pairing it with the Treasury of Atreus, the finest of the tholos tombs, lets a visitor read the two greatest beehive chambers of Mycenae in sequence and grasp the height the form reached. The grave circles nearby hold the earlier shaft burials. The ground offers a full arc of royal burial across the Bronze Age, from shaft grave to monumental dome, on one hillside above the Argolid plain.
Walking that arc in order turns the tomb from a single stop into part of a longer royal story.
Rounding out the visit means turning from the tombs to the finds and the story they carry. The Mycenae archaeological museum gathers objects lifted from the graves and the citadel, giving faces and craft to the rulers whose names the tombs have lost. A close reading of the Tomb of Clytemnestra sits well within a half day at the site, leaving room for the gate, the walls and the museum in the same trip. Treated this way, the tomb is neither a passing photograph nor a distraction from the citadel above.
It stands as a full chapter in the account of a Bronze Age kingdom, read in stone and dome on the slope where the rulers of the citadel were laid to rest below the walls.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Tomb of Clytemnestra included in the Mycenae site ticket?
The tomb stands close to the road below the citadel walls and forms part of the archaeological site of Mycenae, so it reads as one stop within a wider visit rather than a separate outing. Its open passage lies near the approach that carries visitors up toward the Lion Gate, which makes it easy to fold into the walk without a long detour. The chamber pairs naturally with the Treasury of Atreus, the grandest of the tholos tombs, and with the grave circles that hold the earlier royal burials. Reading these monuments in sequence gives a full arc of Bronze Age burial on one hillside, from shaft grave to monumental dome.
Allow time to stand at the mouth of the passage and look into the corbelled chamber, since the scale of the dome is the point of the tomb. Treated as one chapter in the visit, the tomb sits comfortably alongside the gate, the walls and the site museum in a single trip to Mycenae.
Why is the tomb second only to the Treasury of Atreus?
The two chambers share the same design of dromos, doorway, relieving triangle and corbelled dome. The Treasury of Atreus outstrips every other beehive tomb at Mycenae in the sheer size and finish of its dome and doorway. The Tomb of Clytemnestra follows immediately behind, matching the same plan on a slightly smaller scale and with the same care in its cut stone. This close ranking makes the pair the natural anchors for reading the tholos form at Mycenae, since together they show how far the technique of the corbelled dome was pushed by the builders of the citadel.
Both were raised for rulers at the height of the site’s power, and both were buried under earth mounds that hid the domes from outside view. Standing in one and then the other, a visitor grasps the ambition behind these royal graves and the skill that let their domes stand across the long centuries since the Bronze Age kingdom fell into ruin.
Can the tomb really be linked to Clytemnestra herself?
The name belongs to later Greek myth and cannot be tied to any real burial in the chamber. Tradition cast Clytemnestra as the wife and murderer of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. A later age draped that story over the tomb as it draped the name of Atreus over the largest chamber nearby. No inscription, burial or find links the tholos to Clytemnestra or to any named ruler, so the label marks legend laid over stone rather than a recovered fact about who lay inside. The honest reading treats the architecture and the myth as separate things.
The dromos, doorway, relieving triangle and corbelled dome are the certain work of Bronze Age builders, raised for a ruler whose true name is lost. The myth is old as well, carried in epic and tragedy, yet it belongs to a world shaped centuries after the tomb was sealed. Holding the two apart lets a visitor admire the stone for what it is while enjoying the story for what it adds.