Etymology of a Sarcophagus
The Linguistic Connection between Flies and Coffins
Discovering interesting connections between seemingly unrelated words can be one of the great joys of the subject of etymology. The word Sarcophagus is a great example.
Here are two things that seem at first to be entirely unrelated: Stone coffins, and flesh-eating insects. In terms of language, however, perhaps there is a greater connection between these two things than one might think. Such a connection may be found easily by a simple examination of the names which have been given to these things.
The stone coffins used since ancient times to store bodies above ground are known as sarcophagi (singular: sarcophagus). In addition, there is a family of flies with the eerily similar scientific name; Sarcophagidae. Clearly, there must be some reason behind both of these names.
Flesh Eaters
To answer this, one must to look closely at the etymology (word history) of sarcophagus, which is actually quite an easy task and can be done with only a cursory knowledge of the Greek language.
The word comes from a combination of two Greek words, sarko (sarkw), meaning “flesh” and phagos (fagos), meaning “to eat.” So, the word sarcophagus, as a combination of these two words, simply means “flesh eating.” Now, while this makes perfect sense when talking about the Sarcophagidae flies, which are most often known as “flesh eating flies” for reasons which should be sufficiently self-explanatory, it doesn’t explain why this name would be given to stone coffins.
There is actually a fairly simple explanation for this as well. Originally, the ancient Greeks called these stone coffins sarkaphagos lithos (sarkaphagos liqos), meaning “flesh eating stone.” The reason for this name is actually quite interesting.
The name emerged from the knowledge that certain stone – specifically limestone – can help to aid in the process of decomposition. As a result, it came to be believed that by burying the dead in limestone coffins, their bodies would quickly decompose, aided by the coffin itself. Thus, the coffin would effectively eat away at the flesh of the body (similar to the way lime is still used to this day in helping to aid decomposition in compost piles, along with other uses.
Further Etymology
These properties of limestone were known at least as early as the fifth century, B.C. (probably much earlier, even), when they were first described by the Greek historian Herodotus, though the word sarcophagus in its modern form, used first to describe a specific type of marble, and then to describe the coffins made of it, was not actually used until the beginning of the 17th century.
Although today it is common to refer to any ancient coffin a sarcophagus, it should be known that the ancient Egyptians (a culture with perhaps the most well-known sarcophagi of all) never actually used this word, and buried their dead in coffins made of stone or clay, without the need for rapid decomposition. As the word caught on though, becoming more and more universal in its application, it began to be used to describe even those coffins that existed long before the word itself arrived.
It is in this way that today one finds such an unexpected similarity between the word used to describe a stone coffin, and the word used to describe a flesh-eating insect. Such are the joys of etymology.
References:
“Sarcophagus.” Encyclopedia.com.
Monet, Jefferson. “The Coffins of Ancient Egypt.”
