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A cist ( or ; also kist ; from grc-gre, κίστη,
Middle Welsh Middle Welsh ( cy, Cymraeg Canol, wlm, Kymraec) is the label attached to the Welsh language of the 12th to 15th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This form of Welsh developed directly from Old Welsh ( cy, Hen G ...
''Kist'' or Germanic ''Kiste'') is a small stone-built coffin-like box or
ossuary An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the ...
used to hold the bodies of the dead. Examples can be found across Europe and in the Middle East. A cist may have been associated with other monuments, perhaps under a cairn or long barrow. Several cists are sometimes found close together within the same cairn or barrow. Often ornaments have been found within an excavated cist, indicating the wealth or prominence of the interred individual. This old word is preserved in the Nordic languages as "" in Swedish and "" in Danish and Norwegian, where it is the word for a
funerary A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect ...
coffin. In English it is related to "cistern".'' cistern''


Regional examples

;Sri Lanka * Bellanbedipalassa * Pothana * Ibbankatuwa Megalithic Stones * Udaranchamadama ;England * Bellever Forest, Dartmoor * Hepburn woods, Northumberland ;Estonia * Jõelähtme (Rebala) stone-cist graves, Harju County ;Guatemala *
Mundo Perdido, Tikal The Mundo Perdido (Spanish for "Lost World") is the largest ceremonial complex dating from the Preclassic period at the ancient Maya city of Tikal, in the Petén Department of northern Guatemala.Martin and Grube 2000, p.28. The complex was organ ...
, Petén Department ;Israel *
Tel Kabri Tel Kabri ( he, תֵל כַבְרִי), or Tell al-Qahweh ( ar, تَلْ ألْقَهوَة, , mound of coffee), is an archaeological tell (mound created by accumulation of remains) containing one of the largest Middle Bronze Age (2,100–1,5 ...
(Area A), Upper Galilee ;Scotland * Balblair cist,
Beauly Beauly ( ; ; gd, A' Mhanachainn) is a village in the Highland area, on the River Beauly, west of Inverness by the Far North railway line. The town is historically within Kilmorack Parish of the Scottish County of Inverness. The land around B ...
, Inverness *
Dunan Aula Dunan Aula, also known in Scottish Gaelic as Dùnan Amhlaidh, is the site of an exposed cist, located in the parish of Craignish, in Argyll and Bute, Scotland, at . The place-name means "Olaf's mound"; it is said to commemorate a Viking prince so- ...
, Craignish, Argyll and Bute * Holm Mains Farm, Inverness * Nether Mill, Kilbirnie, North Ayrshire


See also

*
Kistvaen A kistvaen or cistvaen is a tomb or burial chamber formed from flat stone slabs in a box-like shape. If set completely underground, it may be covered by a ''tumulus''. The word is derived from the Welsh Language, Welsh ''cist'' (chest) and '' ...
*
Dartmoor kistvaens Dartmoor kistvaens are burial tombs or cists from the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age, i.e. from c 2500 BC to c 1500 BC. Kistvaens have been found in many places, including Dartmoor, a area of moorland in south Devon, England. The box-lik ...
*
Stone box grave Stone box graves were a method of burial used by Native Americans of the Mississippian culture in the Midwestern United States and the Southeastern United States. Their construction was especially common in the Cumberland River Basin, in settle ...


References


External links


Pretanic World - Chart of Neolithic, Bronze Age and Celtic Stone Structures
{{Prehistoric technology, state=expanded Burial monuments and structures Archaeology of death