Sarcophagus, plural Sarcophagi, is a kind of stone used among the Greeks for making coffins, and so called because it was believed to have the property of consuming the flesh of dead bodies deposited in it within a few weeks. Hence a coffin or tomb of stone; a kind of stone chest used for containing a dead body. In modern times stone coffins are occasionally used for royal or distinguished persons.-(Charles Leonard-Stuart, 1911)