Cyclopean masonry is a type of stonework used in Mycenaean architecture characterized by roughly fitted limestone boulders without mortar. The most famous examples are the massive walls of Mycenae and Tiryns, which classical Greeks believed were built by the mythical Cyclopes due to the enormous boulders used. Cyclopean masonry involves irregularly shaped limestone boulders fitted together without mortar and sometimes with smaller stones filling the gaps. It was a distinctive building style of Mycenaean fortifications, though the term is now more broadly used to describe similar stonework from other cultures.

1. Cyclopean masonry
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Cyclopean masonry is a type of stonework found in Mycenaean architecture, built with huge
limestone boulders, roughly fitted together with minimal clearance between adjacent stones and
no use of mortar. The boulders typically are unworked, but sometimes are worked roughly with a
hammer, and often the gaps between boulders are filled in with smaller chunks of limestone.
The most famous examples of Cyclopean masonry are found in the walls of Mycenae and Tiryns,
and the style is characteristic of Mycenaean fortifications. Similar styles of stonework are found
in other cultures and the term has become used to describe typical stonework.
The term comes from the belief by classical Greeks that only the mythical Cyclopes had the
strength to move the enormous boulders that made up the walls of Mycenae and Tiryns. Pliny's
Natural History reported the tradition attributed to Aristotle, that the Cyclopes were the inventors
of masonry towers, giving rise to the designation Cyclopean.[1]
Contents
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 1 Current definitions of Cyclopean masonry
 2 Outdated definitions of the Cyclopean style
 3 Historical accounts
 4 Locations of Cyclopean structures
 5 References
 6 External links
[edit] Current definitions of Cyclopean masonry
A typical stretch of Cyclopean walling (near Grave Circle A at Mycenae)

2. "The walls are usually founded in extremely shallow beddings carved out of the bedrock.
'Cyclopean', the term normally applied to the masonry style characteristic of Mycenaean
fortification systems, describes walls built of huge, unworked limestone boulders which are
roughly fitted together. Between these boulders, smaller hunks of limestone fill the interstices.
The exterior faces of the large boulders may be roughly hammer-dressed, but the boulders
themselves are never carefully cut blocks. Very large boulders are typical of the Mycenaean
walls at Mycenae, Tiryns, Argos, Krisa (in Phocis), and the Athenian Acropolis. Somewhat
smaller boulders occur in the walls of Midea, whereas large limestone slabs are characteristic of
the walls at Gla. Cut stone masonry is used only in and around gateways, conglomerate at
Mycenae and Tiryns and perhaps both conglomerate and limestone at Argos."[2]
[edit] Outdated definitions of the Cyclopean style
Harry Thurston Peck, writing in 1898, divided Cyclopean masonry into four categories or
styles:[3]
1. The first style, which is the oldest, consists of unwrought stones of various sizes in which
the gaps are, or were, filled with small stones.
2. The second is characterized by polygonal stones, which fit against each other with
precision.
3. The third style includes structures in Phocis, Boeotia and Argolis. It is characterized by
work made in courses and by stones of unequal size, but of the same height. This
category includes the walls of Mycenae, the Lion Gate, and the Treasury of Atreus [4].
4. The fourth style is characterized by horizontal courses of masonry, not always of the
same height, but of stones which are all rectangular. This style is common in Attica.
While Peck's first and possibly second and third styles conforms to what archaeologists today
would classify as cyclopean, the fourth now is referred to as ashlar and is not considered
cyclopean. There is a more detailed description of the Cyclopean styles at the Perseus Project.[5]
[edit] Historical accounts

3. Difference between Cyclopean masonry, shown in the blue rectangle, and ashlar masonry,
outside the rectangle
Pausanias described the Cyclopean walls of Mycenae and Tiryns:
There still remain, however, parts of the city wall [of Mycenae], including the gate, upon
which stand lions. These, too, are said to be the work of the Cyclopes, who made for
Proetus the wall at Tiryns. (2.16.5)
Going on from here and turning to the right, you come to the ruins of Tiryns. ... The wall,
which is the only part of the ruins still remaining, is a work of the Cyclopes made of
unwrought stones, each stone being so big that a pair of mules could not move the
smallest from its place to the slightest degree. Long ago small stones were so inserted
that each of them binds the large blocks firmly together. (2.25.8)
Modern archaeologists use "Cyclopean" in a more restricted sense than the description by
Pausanias; while Pausanias attributes all of the fortifications of Tiryns and Mycenae, including
the Lion Gate, to the Cyclopes, only parts of these walls are built in Cyclopean masonry. The
photograph above shows the difference between Cyclopean masonry (shown in the blue
rectangle), and the ashlar masonry of the Lion Gate.
[edit] Locations of Cyclopean structures
Apart from the Tirynthian and Mycenaean walls, other Cyclopean structures include some tholos
tombs in Greece and the fortifications of a number of Mycenaean sites, most famously at Gla.
The Nuraghe of Bronze Age Sardinia also are described as being constructed in cyclopean
masonry, as are some of the constructions of the Talaiotic Culture abounding on Menorca and
present to a lesser extent on Mallorca. Other constructions dating from Roman times considered
to be cyclopean may be found, for instance, in Tarragona, in a large section of the Roman city
walls. See an image of the Roman walls of Tarragona at the Enciclopèdia Catalana.

4. In Ireland, cyclopean type of masonry may be seen in the building of some Early Medieval
Churches.