The anelastic. nature of the earth materials and the fact that the theory of viscoelastic describes the linear bebaviour of both elastic and anelastic materials, suggested to Buchen [1971] and Borcherdt [1973 a, b] to study the propagation of waves in homogeneous, isotropic, linear viscoelastic materials. They found a distinct difference between the inhomogensous waves of elastic media and the inhomogenrous waves of linear anelastic media. Borcherdt [1973] investigated this difference for Rayleigh-type surface waves on a linear virceelastic half-space and found that the physical properties of the surface waves are distinct frem those predicted by perfect elasticity theory. Using general plane wave solutions, we derive the frequency equation for propagation of Rayleigh-type surface waves in a three layered homogeneous, isotropic, viscoelastic medium.