cist

{{Short description|Small stone-built coffin-like box, ossua or dolmen}}

{{about|the type of grave|the medical phenomenon|Cyst|other uses}}

File:Drizzlecombe kist 4.JPG on the southern edge of Dartmoor in Drizzlecombe (England) showing the capstone and the inner cist structure.]] Image:Cista.jpg

{{wikt | cist}}

In archeology, a cist ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|ɪ|s|t}}; also kist {{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|ɪ|s|t}};{{cite book | author = Houghton Mifflin | author-link = Houghton Mifflin | title = The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language | edition = 4th | publisher = Houghton Mifflin | year = 2000 | location = Boston and New York | pages = [https://archive.org/details/americanheritage0000unse_a1o7/page/339 339] | url = https://archive.org/details/americanheritage0000unse_a1o7/page/339 | isbn = 978-0-395-82517-4 | url-access = registration }}[http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com Merriam-Webster Unabridged] (MWU). (Online subscription-based reference service of Merriam-Webster, based on Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002.) Headword cist. Accessed 2007-12-11.

ultimately from {{langx|grc|κίστη}}; cognate to {{langx|en|chest}}) or cist grave is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead. In some ways, it is similar to the deeper shaft tomb. Examples occur across Europe and in the Middle East.{{cite web | url = http://www.calvin.edu/academic/archaeology/uj/publicat/reports/cheney.htm | title = A Cist Burial in Jordan}}{{cite journal | url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/3210997 | title = Burials in Ancient Palestine: From the Stone Age to Abraham | jstor = 3210997 | last1 = Callaway | first1 = Joseph A. | journal = The Biblical Archaeologist | year = 1963 | volume = 26 | issue = 3 | pages = 74–91 | doi = 10.2307/3210997 | s2cid = 165441707}}{{Cite web |url= http://projectsx.dartmouth.edu/history/bronze_age/lessons/les/6.html |title= The Early Minoan Period: The Tombs |access-date= 2008-03-30 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080323104956/http://projectsx.dartmouth.edu/history/bronze_age/lessons/les/6.html |archive-date= 2008-03-23 |url-status= dead }}{{cite web | url = http://www.wollamshram.ca/1001/Bologna/bologna_appen.htm | title = Excavation of Cist in Bologna, Italy}}

A cist may have formerly been associated with other monuments, perhaps under a cairn or a long barrow. Several cists are sometimes found close together within the same cairn or barrow. Often ornaments have been found within an excavated cist, indicating the wealth or prominence of the interred individual.

This old word is preserved in the Nordic languages as {{lang|sv|kista|italic= yes}} in Swedish and {{lang|da|kiste|italic= yes}} in Danish and Norwegian, where it is the word for a funerary coffin.:sv:likkista:da:ligkiste:no:kiste In English the term is related to cisterncistern and to chest.