beehive tombs/tholos tombs

In Greece, the vaulted tombs are a monumental Late Bronze Age development. Their origin is a matter of considerable debate: were they inspired by the beehive tombs of Crete which were first used in the Early Minoan period or were they a natural development of tumulus burials dating to the Middle Bronze Age? In concept, they are similar to the much more numerous Mycenaean beehive tombs which seem to have emerged at about the same time. The Mycenaeans began to use beehive tombs, also called tholos because of their shape, around 1500 BCE. These were large chambers cut into the hillside. The approach to the tomb was a long unroofed passage cut horizontally into the hillside. The stones used to line the tomb were large limestones. The scale of these tombs is enormous. The lintel at the entrance of one of the tombs weighs over 100 tons.