A coffin or casket is a funerary box used for viewing or keeping a corpse, for burial, entombment or cremation. Coffins are sometimes referred to as caskets, particularly in American English.
A display of coffins in the office of a funeral director in Poland
A casket showroom in Billings, Montana, depicting split lid coffins
Ancient Egyptian coffin, 1802–1640 BC
Coffin of prince Liu Wu, covered with jade panels. China, 154 BC
A sarcophagus is a coffin, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word sarcophagus comes from the Greek σάρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγ
Coffin
…can be performed. The dead are also disinterred for rituals. Mass burials are also practiced. In northern Sulawesi, some dead were kept in above ground sarcophagi called waruga until the practice was banned by the Dutch in the 19th century. Handles and other ornaments (such as doves, stipple crosses, crucifix…
Ancient Egyptian sarcophagus lid.
Roman sarcophagus with the myth of Medea, c. 140–150 AD, from Rome, exhibited in the Antikensammlung Berlin (Berlin)
Roman sarcophagus with Apollo, Minerva and the Muses, c. 200 AD, from Via Appia, exhibited in the Antikensammlung Berlin
The Gothic sarcophagi of Don Àlvar Rodrigo de Cabrera, count of Urgell and his wife Cecília of Foix, c. 1300–1350, made of limestone, traces of paint, exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)