SARAWAN, a province of Beloochistan, lying between N. Lat. 27. 53. and 30. 20., E. Long. 64. and 67. 40.; bounded on the W. and N. by Afghanistan, E. by Afghanistan and the province of Cutch-Gundava, and S. by those of Jhalawan, Kelat, and Mekran. Length from N.E. to S.W. about 250 miles, greatest breadth 80; area about
15,000 square miles. It is a very mountainous and rugged country, and is enclosed by mountain ranges on the E., N., and W. Those on the E. are traversed by the Bolan Pass, leading into Cutch-Gundava; and those on the northern frontier contain the lofty summit of Tukatoo, estimated at 11,000 or 12,000 feet high. There are some very fertile valleys and plains in Sarawan, especially the valley of Shawl in the N., and that of Musturg, separated from it by a barren plain, 20 miles broad; but in general the country is very dry, having no large stream except the Bolan, which flows through the pass of that name. The population is estimated at 50,000; and the chief town is Sarawan, a collection of mud houses, with a wall of the same material, and 4000 inhabitants.
SARCOPHAGUS (σάρξ flesh, and φάγιν to eat), a sort of stone coffin or grave, in which the ancients deposited the bodies of the dead which were not intended to be burned. It is supposed to be derived from the Lapis Assius, a stone much used among the Greeks in their sepultures, recorded to have always perfectly consumed in forty days the flesh of human bodies buried in it. There was also another fabulous quality assigned to it—namely, its power of turning into stone anything put into vessels made of it. 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.