Mysteries of vernacular: Sarcophagus - Jessica Oreck and Rachael Teel
Transcriber: Andrea McDonough
Reviewer: Jessica Ruby
Mysteries of vernacular:
Sarcophagus,
a stone coffin typically adorned
with decorative carvings or inscriptions.
The history of the word sarcophagus
is so skin-crawlingly grotesque,
it seems to come right out
of a low-budget horror film.
Rather than having
a B-movie origin, however,
its roots can be traced back
to the early Roman Empire
where the Greek word sarkophagus
was used to describe the limestone
that a coffin was made of,
not the coffin itself.
According to the Roman
scholar Pliny the Elder,
citizens of the Empire believed
that limestone from a quarry near Troy
would dissolve flesh.
For this reason, it was quite desireable
in the construction of coffins.
Though it's unclear
if the belief was widespread
or even accurately reported by Pliny,
what is certain is that sarkophagus
came from the Greek words sark,
meaning flesh,
and phagein,
a verb meaning to eat.
From flesh-eating stone
to stone coffin,
it's a fitting etymology
for the final resting
place of the deceased.
