Plaka: Mycenae: Cistern

At the far east end of the site lies this opening to a stairway that descends down to the cistern.

It's mentioned on most of the guides but always rather vaguely. I wanted to see what was there.

cistern

Standing at the entrance to the stairway you see this. Rough, uneven steps going down - but note the massive construction.

Standing at about where the post and lintel was visible in the last photo, you see this.

These photos are all illuminated by flash, of course. It was pretty close to full dark at this point.

This is taken standing at the landing visible at the end of the path in the previous photo.

The stairway has turned to the left and goes down as you see here.

This was pitch black in reality, illuminated only by flash.

I had stupidly forgotten to take my flashlight, and I was running out of time, so further exploration of this will have to wait until another trip.

Maps show that at the end of this flight, there is a 180 degree turn to the right and then it goes down again.

Photos of the cistern and detailed archeological information about it are rather hard to come by.