SARCOPHAGUS, a 'word derived from the Creek lesh eater, but used to designate any kind of coffin, especially large ones of stone. This name was given from sarcophagi being originally made of a kind of stone from Assoc in Mysia, supposed to bo alumens chisti, or a kind of pumice stone, which was fabled to consume the entire Lofty, with the exception of the teeth, in the space of forty days. (Pliny,' N. H.,' ii., 98, xxvi. 27.) The term was, however, applied at the time of the Roman Empire to all kinds of stone coffins. (Juvenal, x., 172 ; Dig., 34, tit. L, a 18, is. 5 ; Orellius Inscript.,' Nos. 194, 4452, 54.) The earliest sarcophagi are the Egyptian, called in the hieroglyphs Oa, or chest, and found from the time of the pyramids [PvitAmms] till the let century A.D. Those of the early dynasties were sculptured in shape of a square chest, or edifice, and left plain or else only ornamented with two leaves of the lotus. Those of the 18th and following dynasties were of different shapes, the most usual being that of an Egyptian mummy swathed, dividing into two parts lengthwise, the cover formed by the front, and the chest by the back of the figure—the two fixing by mortices and grooves, holes for which were cut in the stone. The coffins of this period were principally of red granite, and ornamented with inscriptions or scenes relating to the myth of Uri', or the passage of the Sun through the lower hemi sphere, or regions of the night and darkness. The most remarkable of this period are the arragonite or oriental alabaster sarcophagus of Seti I., in the Scene Museum, and that of Rameses III., in the Louvre, the cover of which is in the Fitzwilliatn 3lueeum at Cambridge. At the period of the 26th dynasty, the sarcophagi were generally made of basalt; although a coarse red granite, black or white marble was occasionally used. The hieroglyphic legends of this age are often chapters extracted from the Ritual of the Dead. The last of the royal sarcophagi is that of Nekhtherhebi, or Neetanebes L, in the British Museum, made of a fine breccia, and sculptured with scenes of the passage of the San. This was formerly at Alexandria, and supposed upon very insufficient grounds by some to have been the tomb of Alexander the Great. Recent discoveries have shown that the Plurnician kings were buried in sarcophagi of basalt or alabaster, of a mummied shape like the Egyptians, although different in treatment and art. The most remarkable of these is that of Esmunazar, king of Sidon, inscribed with a long Phoenician inscription, snd supposed to be of about n.c. 574. The Persian monarchs were also buried in sarco phagi, and one of those of the kings of Judah, a plain rectangular chest, decorated with a simple floral ornament of vine branches, is in the 31useum of the Louvre. Rude /sarcophagi were also used by the
Lycians and other Greco-barbario people of Asia Minor.
In Asiatic and European Greece many sarcophagi have been found, but few, if any, earlier than the Roman Empire, and generally of the lit and 2nd century A.D. These are of the same character as those discovered in the Romau columbaria. consisting of rectangular cheats about 8 feet long, 3 feet high, and as many broad. The covers are often in shape of a pent roof, or ornamented with figures of the deceased in full relief. They are richly decorated with bats-reliefs, at an earlier period, of many figures representing mythological subjects, but at a later with festoons of flowers, fruit, and arabesques, with small figures. A still larger class than the Greek are the Etruscan, none of which, from their style of art, seem older than the middle of the 4th century B.C., and are made of peperino, alabaster, or terra cotta, generally having on their covers a full-length recumbent figure of the deceased leaning on the elbow as if on a couch at a feast. The chests are decorated with relief's, reptesenting Greek myths, treated in the Etruscan manner, with the names of the persons represented in the Etruscan language. Those found in the tombs of Volterra and Chiusi are of arragonite or marble, of small dimensions, about 14 inches long by 3 inches broad, and 1 foot 0 inches high, and are rather cinerary urns, as they contain only the ashes of the dead. The Roman sarcophagi, at the time of the republic, appear to have been plain architectonic chests, as shown by those of the Scipio family, but under the empire they became more richly ornamented, like the Etruscan, with recumbent figures on the cover and bas-reliefs of mythological subjects, allusive to the life or death of the person buried, as Prome theus, Orestes, and Ganymede. These sarcophagi continued till the 6th and 7th century, when arabesques were introduced, and two remarkable ones of the first period of Christian art are those of St. Constantia and St. Helena of red porphyry, ornamented with bas reliefs, representing triumphs and processions, at present in the Vatican. At a later period Christian sarcophagi are ornamented with subjects taken from the Old and New Testament. Stone chests or sarcophagi were also used for interment by the Gaulish tribes, and their use for the sepulture of distinguished persons has been continued till the present day.
(1)0 Rough, Monuments Pgyptiens dms Miss& de Louvre, Svo, Paris, 1855; Due de Lnynes, Le Sarcophage d'Esmunazar, 4to, Paris, 1856 ; Micali, Stone d'Italia, Fir., 1832.)