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A tomb (Ancient Greek : τύμβοςtumbos [1] ) or sepulcher (Latin : sepulcrum) is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called immurement , although this word mainly means entombing people alive, and is a method of final disposition, as an alternative to cremation or burial.
The word is used in a broad sense to encompass a number of such types of places of interment or, occasionally, burial, including:
As indicated, tombs are generally located in or under religious buildings, such as churches, or in cemeteries or churchyards. However, they may also be found in catacombs, on private land or, in the case of early or pre-historic tombs, in what is today open landscape.
The Daisen Kofun, the tomb of Emperor Nintoku (the 16th Emperor of Japan), is the largest in the world by area. [3] However, the Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt is the largest by volume.
Emperor Nintoku, also known as Ohosazaki no Sumeramikoto (大鷦鷯天皇) was the 16th Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Due to his reputation for goodness derived from depictions in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, he is sometimes referred to as the Saint Emperor.
A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be considered a type of tomb, or the tomb may be considered to be within the mausoleum.
A grave is a location where a dead body is buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as graveyards or cemeteries.
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or kurgans, and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones built for various purposes, may also originally have been a tumulus.
Kofun are megalithic tombs or tumuli in Northeast Asia. Kofun were mainly constructed in the Japanese archipelago between the middle of the 3rd century to the early 7th century AD.
The Qian Mausoleum is a Tang dynasty (618–907) tomb site located in Qian County, Shaanxi Province, China, and is 85 km (53 mi) northwest of Xi'an. Built in 684, the tombs of the mausoleum complex house the remains of various members of the House of Li, the imperial family of the Tang dynasty. This includes Emperor Gaozong, as well as his wife, Wu Zetian, who assumed the Tang throne and became China's only reigning female emperor from 690 to 705. The mausoleum is renowned for its many Tang dynasty stone statues located above ground and the mural paintings adorning the subterranean walls of the tombs. Besides the main tumulus mound and underground tomb of Emperor Gaozong and Wu Zetian, there are 17 smaller attendant tombs, or peizang mu. Presently, only five of these attendant tombs have been excavated by archaeologists, three belonging to members of the imperial family, one to a chancellor, and the other to a general of the left guard. The Shaanxi Administration of Cultural Heritage declared in 2012 that no further excavations would take place for at least 50 years.
Funerary art is any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead. The term encompasses a wide variety of forms, including cenotaphs, tomb-like monuments which do not contain human remains, and communal memorials to the dead, such as war memorials, which may or may not contain remains, and a range of prehistoric megalithic constructs. Funerary art may serve many cultural functions. It can play a role in burial rites, serve as an article for use by the dead in the afterlife, and celebrate the life and accomplishments of the dead, whether as part of kinship-centred practices of ancestor veneration or as a publicly directed dynastic display. It can also function as a reminder of the mortality of humankind, as an expression of cultural values and roles, and help to propitiate the spirits of the dead, maintaining their benevolence and preventing their unwelcome intrusion into the lives of the living.
A necropolis is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek νεκρόπολις nekropolis.
The Inariyama Kofun (稲荷山古墳) is a kofun burial mound located in the city of Gyōda, Saitama Prefecture, in the Kantō region of Japan. The tumulus was designated a National Historic Site in 1938 and re-designated as a Special National Historic Site of Japan in 2020 as part of the Sakitama Kofun Cluster. It is also referred to as the Sakitama Inariyama Kofun (埼玉稲荷山古墳) or the Gyōda Inariyama Kofun (行田稲荷山古墳) to disambiguate it from other tumuli using the name of "Inariyama" in other parts of the country.
The Vatican Necropolis lies under the Vatican City, at depths varying between 5–12 metres below Saint Peter's Basilica. The Vatican sponsored archaeological excavations under Saint Peter's in the years 1940–1949 which revealed parts of a necropolis dating to the Roman Empire. The work was undertaken at the request of Pope Pius XI who wished to be buried as close as possible to Peter the Apostle. It is also home to the Tomb of the Julii, which has been dated to the third or fourth century. The necropolis was not originally one of the Catacombs of Rome, but an open-air cemetery with tombs and mausolea.
The Mausoleum of Shaohao is located in the north-east of Jiuxian Village, on the eastern outskirts of the city of Qufu in Shandong Province, China. The mausoleum complex honours Shaohao, the son of the first mythical Chinese ruler and one of the mythical five emperors himself.
The Mozu Tombs are a group of kofun —megalithic tombs—in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. Originally consisting of more than 100 tombs, only less than 50% of the key-hole, round, and rectangular tombs remain.
A martyrium (Latin) or martyrion (Greek), sometimes anglicized martyry, is a church or shrine built over the tomb of a Christian martyr. It is associated with a specific architectural form, centered on a central element and thus built on a central plan, that is, of a circular or sometimes octagonal or cruciform shape.
The Catacombs of San Sebastiano are a hypogeum cemetery in Rome, Italy, rising along Via Appia Antica, in the Ardeatino Quarter. It is one of the very few Christian burial places that has always been accessible. The first of the former four floors is now almost completely destroyed.
The funerary art of ancient Rome changed throughout the course of the Roman Republic and the Empire and took many different forms. There were two main burial practices used by the Romans throughout history, one being cremation, another inhumation. The vessels used for these practices include sarcophagi, ash chests, urns, and altars. In addition to these, mausoleums, stele, and other monuments were also used to commemorate the dead. The method by which Romans were memorialized was determined by social class, religion, and other factors. While monuments to the dead were constructed within Roman cities, the remains themselves were interred outside the cities.
There are two tumuli at Marathon, Greece. One is a burial mound, or "Soros" that houses the ashes of 192 Athenians who fell during the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. The other houses the inhumed bodies of the Plataeans who fell during that same battle. The burial mound dominates the plain of Marathon, where the eponymous battle took place, along with the tumulus of the Plataeans, and a victory column erected by the Athenians to commemorate their victory over Darius' Persian expedition. The tumulus is encompassed in a park today.
A tholos, in Latin tholus, is a form of building that was widely used in the classical world. It is a round structure with a circular wall and a roof, usually built upon a couple of steps, and often with a ring of columns supporting a conical or domed roof.
The Tomita Chausuyama Kofun (富田茶臼山古墳) is a kofun burial mound located in the Ōkawamachi Tomidanaka neighborhood of the city of Sanuki, Kagawa Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku of Japan. The tumulus was designated a National Historic Site in 1993. It is the largest burial mound in the Shikoku region, and is estimated to have been built around the middle of the 5th century.
Bin Tepe is an archaeological site on the southern shore of Marmara Lake in Manisa Province, Turkey. Consisting of over 100 tumuli, it served as a cemetery for the elites of nearby Sardis.
The Nintoku-ryo tumulus is one of almost 50 tumuli collectively known as "Mozu Kofungun" clustered around the city, and covers the largest area of any tomb in the world.
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