Certain wooden fragments from tomb V at Mycenae are identified as parts of two small tripod tables, which constitute the best-preserved furniture from the prehistoric Aegean. As the epigraphic, iconographic, and archaeological evidence demonstrates, wooden furniture was not common in the Aegean area and belonged chiefly to prosperous persons, who rarely provided it to the dead. Statistically rare, though more widely known, are the wooden structures used from the end of MM III to the LH/LM III A2 period for burials, nearly all richly endowed (with weapons, metal vessels, ornaments, even with furniture). In tombs with multiple burials the dead person, placed on a bed or a bier, is isolated and raised above the others. Burial in a coffin, of whatever material, constitutes a means of individualizing the dead: the wooden coffin has additional value. Thus these modes of burial are explained as one of the customs adopted during the New Palace and Early Mycenaean period, in order to demonstrate the social and economic status of the prominent dead.