Sarcophagus

Sarcophagus (pronounced sahr-kof-uh-guhs)

(1) A stone coffin, especially one bearing sculpture, inscriptions, etc, often displayed as a monument.

(2) In Ancient Greece, a kind of limestone thought to consume the flesh of corpses, used for coffins.

(3) In contemporary use, any (usually large) structure used to encase something.

(4) A form of wine cooler used in the eighteenth century.

1595-1605: From the French sarcophage, from the Latin sarcophagus, from the Ancient Greek σαρκοφάγος (sarkophágos) (coffin of limestone), noun use of the adjective sarcophagous.  The original in Ancient Greek was so named because of the limestone’s supposed property of consuming the flesh of corpses laid in it: σαρκοφάγος (sarkophágos) (flesh-eating, carnivorous), from the genitive σαρκός (sarkós) of σάρξ (sárx) (flesh; meat) + -φάγος (-phágos) (from ἔφαγον (éphagon), past of φάγω (phágō) (eat), the root of phagein (to eat) being the primitive Indo-European bhag- (to share out, apportion; to get a share).  The preferred plural remains sarcophagi although all dictionaries list the unpalatable sarcophaguses as an alternative.

In English, the sense "stone" was the earliest, the meaning "stone coffin, often with inscriptions or decorative carvings" didn’t emerge until 1705. The Classical Latin was shortened in Vulgar Latin to sarcus, source of the French cercueil (coffin, casket), the German Sarg (coffin) and the Dutch zerk (tombstone).  The reputation of lime as a means of causing the rapid putrefaction of corpses persisted well into the twentieth century and was the downfall of some murderers subsequently surprised to learn it acted instead as a preservative on the bodies they had buried.

The Chernobyl incident

Before incident

The incident at the Chernobyl power-plant on 26 April 1986 was trigged by an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction which happened because of a series of events over two days, ironically during was supposed to be a test of safety systems.   After several explosions, during which quantities of radioactive material were released and spread widely over Europe, the core of reactor number four melted down.  Despite this, other reactors continued to operate and the Chernobyl power plant wasn’t finally decommissioned until December 2000.  The surrounding area is now an exclusion zone and will not be habitable for at least twenty-thousand years with the highly contaminated reactor number four encased in what was intended to be only a temporary concrete sarcophagus (the original Russian name was Объект Укрытие (Obyekt Ukrytiye) which translates as sheltering or covering); it’s since been covered with a metal enclosure.

After incident

The contaminated ruins of reactor number four were so dangerous that work on a sarcophagus began within a month of the meltdown, construction of the reinforced concrete structure substantially complete by November 1986.  However, the building had become so radioactive it became impossible for workers to approach close enough to finish the work and the robots used instead were not able completely to seal the sarcophagus.

Sarcophagus

Envisaged by engineers to have a life of thirty years, the sarcophagus deteriorated more quickly than had been expected and in 1997 an international project was formed to design and build something more durable.  Known as New Safe Confinement, it is a metal arch some 344 feet (105 metres) high and spanning 843 feet (257 metres), prefabricated and moved on rail lines, sliding over the existing sarcophagus.  The project team noted the adoption of the word confinement, rather than containment, commonly used in nuclear facility architecture.  The distinction is the difference between a reactor containment building which designed to contain radioactive gases and a structure built for the confinement of solid radioactive waste.

New Safe Confinement

Construction was completed in late 2018, after which trials and tests of the internal systems were run.  Unlike the sarcophagus, New Safe Confinement is designed to permit, using robotic devices, the remains of reactor number four safely to be dismantled and removed.  This is of course a man-made structure and like them all, nothing lasts forever and there is still no agreement between engineers about when a replacement layer will have to be added although all agree the new sarcophagus should adequately serve for decades; the discussion is about how many.

Mausoleum

Mausoleum (pronounced maw-suh-lee-uhm or maw-zuh-lee-uhm)

(1) A stately and magnificent tomb or a building containing tombs (a burial place for the bodies or remains of many individuals, often of a single family, usually in the form of a small building).

(2) In casual use, a large, gloomy, depressing building, room, or the like.

(3) As one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the tomb erected at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor in circa 353 BC.

1375–1425: From the late Middle English mausoleum, from the Latin mausōlēum, from the Ancient Greek Μαυσωλεῖον (Mausōleîon), from Μαύσωλος (Maúsōlos) (the tomb of satrap of the Persian empire and ruler of Caria, built at Halicarnassus in Asia Minor in circa 353 BC and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World).  The general use to describe "any stately burial-place" (now usually one designed to contain a number of tombs) is from circa 1600.  Synonyms include burial vault, cemetery, coffin, monument, crypt, sepulcher, catacomb & grave.  Mausoleum is a noun and mausolean is the adjective; the noun plural forms are mausoleums or mausolea, the former now most prevalent.  Although “tomb” is now more common, mausoleum has long been used to refer to any large, above-ground tomb.

Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (1886), engraving by Frederick Knab (1865-1918).

The Μαυσωλεῖον τῆς Ἁλικαρνασσοῦ (Mausoleum at Halicarnassus) was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  Built between 353-350 BC in Halicarnassus on the coast of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), it was destroyed by a number of earthquakes from the twelfth to fifteenth century; when finally if fell, of the seven wonders from Antiquity, only the pyramids at Giza remained.  The name Mausolus  translates as “much blessed” and his wife Artemisia II of Caria was also his sister, something far from unknown at the time.  Nominally a satrap of the Achaemenid Empire, Mausolus was the ruler of Caria between 377–353 BC) having inherited the throne from his father Hecatomnus who became king after assassinating the previous Satrap Tissaphernes, something also far from unknown at the time and since.

The Valle de los Caídos (Valley of the Fallen) is a Roman Catholic basilica and mausoleum which lies in the Cuelgamuros Valley near Madrid.  When built, Generalissimo Francisco Franco (1892-1975; Caudillo of Spain 1939-1975) proclaimed the structure to be a "national act of atonement" and reconciliation.  On a monumental scale, the grounds are 5.25 square miles (13.6 km²) of Mediterranean woodlands and granite and towering over all is a 500 foot (150 m) high Christian cross, still the tallest on Earth and visible 20 miles (32 km) away.  Construction began in 1940, almost as soon as Franco took control of the state and it took some eighteen years to built, the inauguration ceremony held in 1959.  It was partly built by political prisoners of the regime but, in a nice touch, it was noted that in exchange for their labour, they received some remission of their sentences.

Something of a Valhalla of the south, for decades, of the forty-thousand-odd interred dead from both sides in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), the most controversial corpse in the place was that of Franco himself, the Caudillo laid to rest there upon his death in November 1975 although, in a political irony, he was the only one there who didn’t actually die during the civil war.  There were objections to that but, because the mausoleum is also a basilica, under the rules of the Church, he’s anyway entitled to a place because of his role in “building the church”, a double irony being Franco himself specified he be buried elsewhere.  It was the government’s decision to place his body in the Valley of the Fallen and that ensured the structure would both become a shrine for those who venerate his memory and an ongoing controversy.  Although slowly fading from living memory into history, the civil war and the subsequent Franco years remain a fault-line in Spanish politics.  Successive governments have had their own plans variously to resolve or gloss-over the issues from those decades but it wasn’t until 2019 that Franco’s body was exhumed and taken to Madrid for re-burial.

Adolf Hitler visiting Napoleon's sarcophagus in Les Invalides, Paris, June 1940.

Hitler made only one visit to Paris, less as a victorious warlord and more as a tourist looking at the architectural highlights.  From years of somewhat haphazard study, Hitler was well acquainted with the buildings of the city and genuinely knowledgeable about details such as the interior fittings of the Paris Opera House but told his architect: “The moment in Paris where I saluted Napoleon's tomb was one of the proudest of my life.”  Hitler had always intended a mausoleum for himself in Linz, the centrepiece of which would be a Napoleonic sarcophagus in the centre of a Pantheon-like structure with an oculus directly above, exposed to the elements and thus “directly linked to the universe."  He made a number of sketches, all predictably in the classical style and distinguished mostly by their massive dimensions.

There is an urban myth that the chamber in which Napoleon's sarcophagus is placed was designed in such as way that if seen from the lower lever, the viewer must look-up as if in awe and if seen from above, one must bow.  However, Les Invalides was completed in 1706 and the two levels of the chapel were included so King might attend Mass with his soldiers; the lower level for soldiers & patients, the upper for the royal court.  Only in 1861 was the chapel converted to a mausoleum after Napoleon’s body was returned by the British, almost half a century after his death.

Coffin

Coffin (pronounced kof-in (U) or kaw-fin (non-U))

(1) The box or case in which the body of a dead person is placed for burial; in US use, usually called a casket.

(2) In veterinary science, the hollow crust or hoof of a horse's foot, below the coronet, in which is the coffin bone.

(3) In printing, the bed of a platen press; the wooden frame around the bed of an early wooden press.

(4) In cooking, a casing or crust, or a mold, of pastry, as for a pie (archaic).

(5) In fingernail art, one of the standard shapes.

(6) In cartomancy, the eighth Lenormand card.

(7) A type of basket (obsolete).

(8) Industry slang for a storage container for nuclear waste.

(9) A conical paper bag, used by grocers (obsolete).

(10) In engineering, an alternative name for a flask or casting mold, especially those used in sand casting.

1300-1350: From the Middle English cofin, from the Old Northern French cofin (sarcophagus (and earlier basket & coffer) from the Latin cophinus (basket, hamper), a loanword from the Ancient Greek κόφινος (kóphinos) (a kind of basket) of uncertain origin, the Latin the source also of the Italian cofano and the Spanish cuebano (basket).  The original meaning in fourteenth century Middle English was "chest or box for valuables", preserved in the modern coffer (see most frequently in the plural form coffers), meaning, inter alia, a specialized type of container for storing money or other valuables.  The funereal sense, "chest or box in which the dead human body is placed for burial" is from 1520s; before that the main secondary sense in English was "pie crust, a mold or casing of pastry for a pie" (late 14c.). The meaning "vehicle regarded as unsafe" is from 1830s; coffin nail (cigarette) is slang from 1880; the phrase "nail in (one's) coffin" (a thing that hastens or contributes to one's death) has been in use since 1792.

Shapes of boxes

A coffin is a funerary box used for viewing or keeping a corpse, either for burial or cremation, although it’s increasingly common for elaborate and expensive coffins to be used only for the funeral ceremony with the dead actually buried or cremated in simple boxes made from cheaper timber or even reinforced cardboard.  Use for burial became two-pronged.  The Old French cofin, (basket), evolved into coffin in English whereas the modern French form, couffin, means cradle.  Within the English-speaking world, coffin is rare in the US where the preferred form is usually casket; elsewhere the words are used interchangeably.  However, some undertakers (now often gentrified as "funeral directors") do note detail differences between the two, a casket denoting a four or eight-sided (almost always a rectangular or long octagonal) shape, while a coffin tends to be six or twelve-sided (almost always an elongated hexagonal or elongated dodecagonal).

1937 Cord 812 Phaeton

Probably because of the morbid association, the coffin has never been widely used as a design metaphor except where adoption is dictated by functional need.  It was however the most famous feature of the Cord 810/812 (1936-1937), known from its debut as the “coffin nose” and probably still the most memorable car of the art deco period.  Despite the elongated hood (bonnet) and coming from an era during which the configuration was widely used, the Cords were fitted not with straight-eight engines but used a 289 cubic inch (4.7 litre) Lycoming V8, the generous length necessitated by something unusual for the time: front wheel drive.  This demanded additional space to achieve the desired lines so the semi-automatic four-speed gearbox was mounted in front of the engine.  In the improving economy of the mid-1930s sales were initially brisk but reliability problems dampened demand and the rectification programme proved so expensive production ceased in 1937, the recession of 1938 dooming hopes of any revival.

Coffin-shaped fingernails painted in Dior 999.

With a distinctive curve which tapers to an obtuse end, the elegant and much-admired coffin is one of the standard shapes in fingernail art.  The name is also sometimes misapplied: If the tapering is more severe, the nail should properly be called an almond and if rounded, it’s an oval or squoval (although some manicurists list those variations as a pipe).

Lindsay Lohan with coffin during vampire-themed photo-shoot.