The Shaft Tombs of Mycenae have been used by many to establish a picture of the social organization of the Mycenaean culture. The Mycenaean world was a culture that developed in the Late Bronze Age on the Helladic continent and in Crete; the most striking elements of this are the style of pottery and the lavish burial practices. The shaft tombs found are chamber tombs accessed by vertical shafts found in Bronze Age Mycenaean Greece and normally lined with stone and topped with beams. In Mycenae there are two circular tombs useful for analyzing the social organization of the city. Grave Circle B is the first of two grave circles with twenty-six graves with multiple pit inhumations. From Phase I to Late Phase I, the dichotomy between the elite class and the lower social classes increased. This is evidenced by the increased richness of burials in grave circle B and the select number of people buried there. I believe that Mycenae developed a non-egalitarian society in this period, proof of this is the disproportionate number of males and females: fifteen males, six females. There are, however, numerous subadult burials (two males and two females), suggesting that they were of some importance, for example burials of members of a "royal family". The funerary objects found in tomb circle B show that male and female roles were generated (weapons for males, jewels for females) and this further supports the idea that there was a sort of separation between the sexes and/or it was of an unequal society. Adult skeletons from both circles appear to be taller, with thicker bones, and suffered less from arthritis, although males often suffered from some trauma, such as head injuries. . This......middle of paper......g separation between classes. A different royal line or noble family arose and used this new ethos, developed in Late Helladic I, to consolidate their influence by producing more ostentatious burials within the city walls reinforcing their form of kingship/elitismWorks CitedWardie KA and D., (2004 ), Cities of Legend: The Mycenaean World, Bristol, Classical PressGraziadio, G, (1991) The Process of Social Stratification at Mycenae in the Shaft Grave Period: A Comparitive Examination of the Evidence, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 95, 403-40Graziadio, G, (1988), The chronology of the Circle B tombs at Mycenae: a new hypothesis, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 92, n.3, 343-72Dickinson OTPK, (1977), The origins of Mycenaean civilization, GöteborgShear IM (2004), Kingship in the Mycenaean World, INSTAP Academic Press