(σαρκος flesh, and φαγειν 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 Asius, a stone much used among the Greeks in their sepulchres, 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.