SARCOPHAGUS, in Antiquity, a sort of stone coffin or grave, in which the ancients deposited the bodies of the dead which were not intended to be burned. The word, as derived from the Greek, literally signifies flesh-eater, because originally a kind of stone was used for tombs, which quickly consumed the bodies. One of the most celebrated specimens of antiquity is the great sarcophagus, which is commonly called the tomb of Alexander the Great. It fell into the hands of the British at the capitulation of Alexandria in Egypt in 1801, and is now deposited in the British Museum.