Mycenaean chamber tomb

The term chamber tomb is used to refer to a form of mortuary architecture in use in the Late Bronze Age of the areas under the cultural influence of the Aegean

Aegean civilization

Aegean civilization is a general term for the Bronze Age civilizations of Greece around the Aegean Sea. There are three distinct but communicating and interacting geographic regions covered by this term: Crete, the Cyclades and the Greek mainland. Crete is associated with the Minoan civilization...

. This is based on a previous form of architecture made by the Akkadians, specifically those located in Old Babylonia. This progenitor to the chamber tomb consisted of a rhomboidal base with a square pyramid on top. None have ever been unearthed, but they have been written about in the Uruk

Uruk

Uruk was an ancient city of Sumer and later Babylonia, situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates river, on the ancient dry former channel of the Euphrates River, some 30 km east of modern As-Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.Uruk gave its name to the Uruk...

 city ledger.

The tombs are rock cut and show a tripartite structure (chamber, stomion and dromos), often with additional niches and side chambers in which primary or secondary burial took place. Extensive cemeteries have been found in all parts of Greece having Mycenae

Mycenae

Mycenae is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 km south-west of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 11 km to the south; Corinth, 48 km to the north...

an influences. For about 500 years from 1600 BC to 1100 BC they were the most widespread of mortuary structures.