Tombs by type

This gallery gives an overview of types of tombs. For each type of tomb there is a description here and and at least one example reference picture.

This page is meant to help users categorizing images of tombs. The categorization scheme 'Tombs by type' is part of the Commons: Category scheme graves, and gives the Type documentation for Category: Tombs.

A tomb is a repository for the remains of the dead. The term generally refers to any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. The word is used in a broad sense to encompass a number of such types of places of interment or, occasionally, burial, including:

See also

• Category:Graves

Prehistoric tombs

Prehistoric places of interment, often for large communities, constructed of large megaliths and originally covered with an earthen mound or tumuli. Specific types are outlined in the Megaliths by type gallery.

See Megaliths by type

Tumuli

A tumulus (plural tumuli or tumuluses) is a mound of earth or earth and stones raised over a tomb or one or more graves. If excavated or otherwise exposed, tumuli may be known to cover specific types of tomb such as a ship burial, but more usually one of those outlined in the Megaliths by type gallery.

Tumulus

Olerdolana

Olerdolana is the name given since 19th century to the tombs dug into the rock of medieval times, due to the large number of this type of structures known in the place of Olèrdola (Barcelona). It is Alberto del Castillo, one of the parents of Spanish medieval archaeology, which popularized this name. These tombs, also called rupestres, anthropomorphic (many have this way), etc. spread good part of the Spanish, British, Portuguese and French geography and, despite doubts there is on his chronology, today we know that most were excavated and used during late Antiquity and the middle ages.

Olerdolana or anthropomorphic tombs in Spain	Anthropomorphic tombs in the United Kingdom	Anthropomorphic tombs in France

Cist tombs

Several burials were documented in cist (a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead). Its chronology goes from Prehistoric to Middle ages.

Prehistoric age cist tomb	Prehistoric age cist tomb	Middle age cist tomb

Sepulchres

Cavernous rock-cut spaces for interment, generally in the Jewish or Christian faiths. There are several famous examples in the Holy Land including the Tomb of Jesus in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Sepulchre

Yagura tombs

Yagura tombs are man-made caves used as tombs in medieval Japan.

Yagura tomb

Underground tombs

Tomb hypogea are stone-built underground structures for interment, such as the tombs of ancient Egypt in the Valley of the Kings.

Catacombs

Catacombs are ancient, human-made subterranean cemeteries. Many are under cities, such as the Catacombs of Rome. In Christian catacombs, the specific individual tombs may be sarcophagi under arches known as Arcosolia.

Catacomb	Arcosolium

Crypts

Burial crypts are stone or brick-lined underground spaces for interment, usually vaulted and beneath a religious building such as a church, usually for groups of people, either general public or private families. They may contain church monuments, sarcophagi or coffins.

Crypt with church monument	Crypt with sarcophagi

Ship burials

A ship burial or boat grave is a grave in which a ship or boat is used either as the tomb for the dead and the grave goods, or is simply as a part of the grave goods itself. There are several famous Viking examples from Norway. Other examples include the Anglo-Saxon ship cemetery at Sutton Hoo in England.

Ship burial

Tombs in the Valley of the Kings

Some of the most underground tombs are those of the ancient pharoahs of Egypt in the Valley of the Kings.

Diagram	Exterior	Interior	wall paintings

Mausoleums

External free-standing structures, above ground, acting as both monument and place of interment, usually for individuals or family groups. Common across religions across the World, they may be small buildings in cemeteries for the gentry or impressive and complex constructions for leading public figures. The latter type may have their own individual categories. Most funerary buildings referred to as 'tombs' are more specifically mausoleums.

Cemetery mausoleum	Large mausoleum

Mausoleums by shape

Some specific shapes have their own categories. Pyramidal mausoleums include the World-famous Pyramids of Egypt.

Neoclassical domed mausoleum	Islamic domed mausoleum	Pyramidal mausoleum	One of the Pyramids of Egypt	Mausoleum tower

Mausoleums by architectural style

Some architectural styles, original or revivalist, have their own categories too.

Ancient Roman mausoleum	Islamic mausoleum	Neoclassical mausoleum	Gothic revival mausoleum

Sarcophagi

Stone containers for bodies or coffins, often decorated and perhaps part of a monument; these may stand within religious buildings or greater tombs or mausolea. Church monuments in the shape of chests can look like sarcophagi, but are usually architectural not sepulchral.

Modern sarcophagus	Medieval sarcophagi	Ancient Roman sarcophagus	Ancient Egyptian sarcophagus

Tombs within church monuments

Church monuments are architectural or sculptural memorials to dead persons within a Christian place of worship or funerary building. Large church monuments may contain the body and would therefore be classed as tombs. However, this is unusual and difficult to to assess by viewing the monument only. The tomb is usually beneath the monument or somewhere nearby beaneath the building. Church monuments which include the tomb are therefore simply categorized as church monuments and not as tombs as well.

Tomb within a church monument