Grave Circle A was the location of the royal burials that have yielded a host of priceless Mycenaean funerary artifacts, now displayed mainly at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens and at the Mycenae Museum. The graves within are dated to the end of Middle Helladic and early Late Helladic Eras, and they were originally part of the expanded cemetery that lay outside the citadel. They were enclosed in the expanded citadel wall sometime in the 13th c. BCE.

Grave Circle A has a diameter of 27m and it is located immediately to the right inside the Lion Gate. The circular burial area is enclosed by a double ring of upright dressed stone slabs which were probably filled with rubble and capped with more rectangular slabs to give a solid wall appearance. An opening in the slabs provided access to the burial site. Ten rectangular funerary stele marked the six shaft graves in which 19 skeletons were found interred in a contracted position.