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BISOMUM

Volume 3 · 72 words · 1797 Edition

or Disomum, in Roman antiquity, a tomb for two dead bodies, or the ashes of two. The ancients frequently buried two, three, or four bodies in the same sepulchre, disposed aside of each other; for it was held an impiety to lay one atop of another. Hence the sepulchres of the primitive Christians had the words bifomi, trifomi, quadrifomi, &c., inscribed on them to indicate the number of bodies deposited in them.