Grave Circle A is a 16th-century BC royal cemetery situated to the south of the Lion Gate, the main entrance of the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae in southern Greece.

[1] This burial complex was initially constructed outside the walls of Mycenae and ultimately enclosed in the acropolis when the fortification was extended during the 13th century BC.

It has been estimated that Circle A contained about 15 kilos of gold in total (not all of high purity); a considerable quantity, but a good deal less than in just the inner coffin of Tutankhamun.

Although Agamemnon was supposed to have lived centuries later, these graves might have belonged to the former ruling dynasty of Mycenae – in Greek mythology, the Perseids.

[7] During the end of the 3rd millennium BC (c. 2200 BC), the indigenous inhabitants of mainland Greece underwent a cultural transformation attributed to climate change, local events and developments (i.e. destruction of the "House of the Tiles"), as well as to continuous contacts with various areas such as western Asia Minor, the Cyclades, Albania, and Dalmatia.

[8] These Bronze Age people were equipped with horses, surrounded themselves with luxury goods, and constructed elaborate shaft graves.

[1] The Shaft Graves found in Mycenae signified the elevation of a local Greek-speaking royal dynasty whose economic power depended on long-distance sea trade.

[2][10][11][12] Mycenaean shaft graves are essentially an Argive variant of the Middle Helladic funerary tradition with features derived from the Early Bronze Age developed locally in mainland Greece.

During the Late Helladic I (1600 BC),[2] there might have been a small unfortified palace on Mycenae,[6] while the Mycenaean ruling family graves remained outside the city walls.

[17] Immediately after the last interment, the local rulers abandoned the shaft graves in favor of a new and more imposing form of tomb already developing in Messenia, in the southern Peloponnese, the tholos.

[20] The burial site had been replanned as a monument, an attempt by the 13th century BC Mycenaean rulers to appropriate the possible heroic past of the older ruling dynasty.

[2] Most of the graves were equipped with full sets of weapons, especially swords,[25] and the figural depictions of the objects show fighting and hunting scenes.

[32] He was also following the accounts of the ancient geographer Pausanias who described the once-prosperous site and mentioned that according to a local tradition during the 2nd century AD.