all periods is a rock-cut chamber entered by a door in one side, to
which access is given by a shaft or sloping passage (_dromos_) cut
likewise in the rock. The earliest are but a few feet from the
surface, just deep enough to ensure a firm roof to the chamber; later
the depth is as much as 12 or 15 feet. Occasionally the chamber, and
even the passage, is built of masonry and roofed with stone slabs or
a corbel vault, and the simple door-slab gives place to a stone door,
hinged, or sliding in a grooved frame. Cremation was occasionally
practised in the Hellenistic Age, but the regular custom was to bury
the body; during the Bronze Age in a sitting or a contracted posture,
in all later periods lying at full length. Stone coffins
(_sarcophagi_), with a lid, were used occasionally by the rich from
the sixth century onwards, and wooden coffins in the Graeco-Roman
period. There is always as rich a tomb-equipment as the mourners
could afford, of personal ornaments, wreaths, provisions, weapons,
and other gear, especially pottery; and terra-cotta figures of men,
animals, furniture, and other objects for the use of the deceased. In
Graeco-Roman tombs pottery is supplemented or replaced by glass
vessels, and coins are frequent, and are important evidence of date.
Most of our knowledge of Cypriote arts and industries comes from this
tomb-equipment, which should therefore if possible be preserved
entire and kept together, tomb by tomb; not neglecting the skeletons
themselves, which are of value to indicate changes in the island
population. The position of tombs was often marked by gravestones
above ground; these remain scattered in the surface soil, or
collected to block the entrances to later tombs. They are frequently
inscribed. A very common form in Greco-Roman times is the _cippus_, a
short column, like an altar.

Pottery and other objects