Definition: At Mycenae, wealthy warrior chieftains and their families were buried in shaft graves such as have been found in "Grave Circles A and B" (walled enclosures) from the Middle or Late Helladic period. A shaft grave is an enlarged cist grave (a box grave made from rectangular stone slabs on their edgeds) that is entered from a shaft through its roof. After the burial, the shaft is filled in with dirt. On the top some had sepulchral stones. J.B. Bury says women wearing gold diadems with household items beside them were also buried in these graves.
Some had weapons and household objects. Some faces were covered with masks.
Sources: Neil Asher Silberman, Cyprian Broodbank, Alan A. D. Peatfield, James C. Wright, Elizabeth B. French "Aegean Cultures" The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Brian M. Fagan, ed., Oxford University Press 1996. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press.
Lesson 16 - Dartmouth - The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean
J.B. Bury, A History of Greece
