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Graves at the Necropolis in Glasgow, Scotland. A necropolis (pl.: necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli [1]) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek νεκρόπολις nekropolis (lit. 'city of the dead').
necropolis, (from Greek nekropolis, “city of the dead”), in archaeology, an extensive and elaborate burial place of an ancient city. In the Mediterranean world, the necropolis was customarily outside the city proper and often consisted of a number of cemeteries used at different times over a period of several centuries.
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Austria
The Burgstallkogel (also known as Grillkogel) is situated near the confluence of the Sulm and the Saggau river valleys in Southern Styria, about 30 km south of Graz between Gleinstätten and Kleinklein. The hill hosted a significant settlement of trans-regional importance from 800 B.C.E. to about 600 B.C.E. Surrounding the hill is one of the largest iron age hill grave necropolises, originally composed of at least 2,000 tumuli, that exists in continental Europe. The hill on which the Burgstall...
Bulgaria
The Varna Necropolis is a burial site in the western industrial zone of Varna (approximately half a kilometer from Lake Varna and 4 km from the city center), Bulgaria, internationally considered a key site in world prehistory. The site was accidentally discovered in October 1972 by excavation operator Raycho Marinov. Since then, 294 graves have been found in the necropolis, but it is estimated that they make up only 30 percent of the graves in the complex. The graves that have been excavated...
France
The Alyscamps is a large Roman necropolis, located a short distance outside the walls of the old town of Arles, France. It was one of the most famous necropolises of the ancient world. Roman cities traditionally forbade burials within the city limits. It was therefore common for the roads immediately outside a city to be lined with tombs and mausoleums; the Appian Way outside Rome provides a good example. The Alyscamps was Arles' main burial ground for nearly 1,500 years. It was the final seg...
Egypt
Located some 30 km south of modern-day Cairo and covering an area of around 7 km by 1.5 km, Saqqara or Sakkara (Arabic: سقارة) is a vast, ancient burial ground in Egypt, featuring the world's oldest standing step pyramid. While Memphis was the capital of Ancient Egypt, Saqqara served as its necropolis. Although it was eclipsed as the burial ground of royalty by Giza and later by the Valley of the Kings in Thebes, it remained an important complex for minor burials and cult ceremonies for more...
Beit She'arim (Hebrew: בית שערים) is the archaeological site of a town and a necropolis on the southern foothills of The Lower Galilee. Most of the remains date from the second to fourth centuries C.E. The inscriptions in the catacombs reveal that the necropolis was of Jewish importance. It served as both a public and private cemetery; the public sections are larger and more complex, resembling catacombs, while the private areas were reserved for members of certain families. The site was most...
Morocco
The Necropolis of Chellah, Chella or Sala (Arabic: شالة) is a necropolis and complex of ancient and medieval ruins that lie on the outskirts of Rabat, Morocco’s Ville Nouvelle, or modern section. The site of Chellah is doubtless the most ancient human settlement on the mouth of the Bou Regreg river. The Phoenicians and the Carthaginians, who founded several colonies in Morocco, probably inhabited the banks of the Bou Regreg. Chellah contains the remains of a Roman town known as Sala Colonia a...
China
The Ming Dynasty Tombs (Míng cháo shí sān líng; lit. Thirteen Tombs of the Ming Dynasty) are located some 50 kilometers due north of Beijing at a carefully selected site. The site was chosen by the third Ming Dynasty emperor Yongle (1402 - 1424), who moved the capital of China from Nanjing to the present location of Beijing. From the Yongle Emperor onwards, 13 Ming Dynasty Emperors were buried in this area. In August 2003, the site was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Three tombs have...
Pakistan
One of the largest necropolises in the world, with a diameter of approximately 8 kilometers, Makli Hill is supposed to be the burial place of some 125,000 Sufi saints. It is located on the outskirts of Thatta, the capital of lower Sind until the seventeenth century, in what is the southeastern province of present-day Pakistan. Legends abound about its inception, but it is generally believed that the cemetery grew around the shrine of the fourteenth century Sufi, Hamad Jamali. The tombs and gr...
Cuba
Necropolis de San Carlos Borromeo aka Cementerio de San Carlos or San Carlos Cemetery is located in Matanzas, Cuba. It was inaugurated on September 2, 1872. The U.S. Congressman Joseph Marion Hernandez is interred there in the del Junco family crypt.
Peru
The large seaside Paracas necropolis is perhaps the most famous necropolis in South America. It has allowed archaeologists to derive a host of information about the Paracas People, which was an important Andean society between approximately 750 B.C.E. and 100 C.E. First investigated by the Peruvian archaeologist Julio Tello in the 1920s, the necropolis is often called Wari Kayan and consists of large subterranean burial chambers, with an average capacity of about 40 mummies. It has been theor...
United States
Colma is a small town in San Mateo County, California, at the northern end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, founded as a necropolis in 1924. Much of the land of Colma is dedicated to cemetery usage. Such famous people as newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst and baseball legend Joe DiMaggioare buried there. With 17 cemeteries for the interment of humans and one for pets, the dead population outnumbers the living by thousands to one. Colma became the location of...
The City of the Dead, or Cairo Necropolis, also referred to as the Qarafa (Arabic: القرافة, romanized: al-Qarafa; locally pronounced as al-'arafa), [1] is a series of vast Islamic-era necropolises and cemeteries in Cairo, Egypt.
Essentially, a necropolis is a city erected to house the remains of deceased loved ones in large tomb monuments. It is much more than a graveyard inside a city or simply a large cemetery. A necropolis was a destination, a site, and a city to behold when they were used in ancient times.
Nov 21, 2023 · A necropolis, literally a city of the dead, is an elaborate, architecturally significant ancient cemetery. Cultures around the world have been building necropolises to house their dead for...
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With its -polis ending, meaning "city", a necropolis is a "city of the dead". Most of the famous necropolises of Egypt line the Nile River across from their cities.
