At the ground level, about the center of the mound, were found large flat unworked flags, which seemed to have formed the roof of a smallcist that had caved in.
The interment took place in a stone cist or chamber, within a large mound, varying from 20 to 50 feet in height.
The stones of which the cist had been built, the bones, and the objects accompanying them were so inextricably mixed that it was impossible to tell which objects belonged to each set of bones.
About 6 feet to the north of the center of the mound, at a depth of 3 feet below the surface, was discovered a small stone cist or chamber, 18 inches square, built of roughly cut blocks of limestone.
Each cist was 6 feet long, 3 feet broad, nearly 4 feet deep, solidly constructed of stones mortared together.
This cist mode of burial is by no means uncommon in Tennessee, as it is frequently mentioned by writers on North American archaeology.
Many of the graves explored by the writer in 1875, at Santa Barbara, resembled somewhat cist graves, the bottom and sides of the pit being lined with large flat stones, but there were none directly over the skeletons.
The first to which attention is directed is interesting as resembling cist burial combined with deposition in mounds.
The same people sometimes bury in scattered graves and in mounds--the mounds being composed of a large number of cist graves.
Owsley, of Fort Hall, Idaho, furnishes the writer with a description of the cist graves of Kentucky, which differ somewhat from other accounts, inasmuch as the graves appeared to be isolated.
According to Bancroft,[17] the Dorachos, an isthmian tribe of Central America, also followed the cistform of burial.
The cist which was first opened was closely packed, to a depth of 1.
The white and calcined bones were then picked out of the ashes by the friends and placed in a metallic urn, which was deposited in a hollow grave or cist and covered over with large well-fitting stones.
The chamber, no longer regarded as a habitation to be tenanted by the deceased, became simply a cist for the reception of the urn which held his ashes.
Similar beads of ivory have been found in a Bronze Age cist near Warminster: if the material is really ivory it must have been derived from the East.
In a megalithic cist unearthed in Phoenix Park, Dublin, in 1838, two male skeletons had each beside them perforated shells (Nerita litoralis).
During the construction of the Edinburgh and Granton railway there was found beside a skeleton in a stone cist a quantity of cockle-shell rings.
Attached to this bay, at its northern end, is a small cist about 3 feet in diameter, and with its floor sunk to the level of the floor of the main room.
East of the cove there is another cist about 4½ feet in diameter and with its floor on the level of the cove.
In the southeastern corner of the main room there is another opening leading into a low-roofed storage cist, approximating 4 feet in diameter, and thiscist was in turn connected with the middle one of the three rooms first described.
At the southern end there is a smallcist and on the western side near the entrance there is another hardly a foot in diameter.
Attached to its southern end by a passage only a foot in length is a small room or storage cist about 5 feet in diameter.
At its northeastern corner there is another room or cist similar in shape, about 7 feet in diameter, and reached by a passage 2 feet long.
In the eastern side of the circular room last described there is a storage cist about 3 feet wide and 2 feet deep.
It was found, together with an urn and the remains of a skeleton, in a short cist on the farm of Fyrish, Evantown, Ross-shire.
No bronze objects were discovered, but the cist appears to have been imperfectly examined.
In the cistwas also a bronze dagger, with a wooden sheath and handle, some large amber beads, a drinking-cup, and the upper part of the skull of a hawk.
Twenty-two of the latter form were found together, in company with a bronze dagger, in a cist in Brittany.
Another large plain button was found by the same explorer in a cist at Great Tosson,[2233] Northumberland.
As instances, I may cite one found in an urn within a cist at Tillicoultry,[1222] Clackmannanshire; and in a cist in Arran.
A beautiful pink pebble, supposed to have been placed with the body as a token of affection, was found in a sepulchral cist at Breedon,[2334] Leicestershire.
The cist lay in a small chamber, the body on its left side, with head to the north.
In one instance (174) the cist was found between walls and beneath a roof of sandstone blocks.
The sides of the cist were broken down, and many of the bones were disturbed, but a part of the spinal column and the legs sufficed to show that the body had lain with the head north, but on its right side.
In it were two burials, the first in a pottery cist placed in one corner of the well at 1·5 metres from the surface.
In the center of the floor of the middle room, 6 feet below the surface, I came upon a cist or stone shrine.
The floor of this recess lies below that of the platform, while the cist itself (D) reminds one of the closed or walled structures, so commonly found in the Verde, attached to the side of the cliff.
This room has also a small cist of masonry in one corner, which calls to mind certain sealed cavities in the cavate dwellings.
The bodies are often found in a cist or box made of large stones, and several were buried in one mound, generally on the south and east sides, so that they might lie in the sun.
In a mound situated in Clear Creek Township, Ashland County, a stone coffin or cist was discovered, constructed of flat stones set up edgewise.
Another, a regular box-shaped cist of stone slabs, contained nothing save a few cranial bones very much decayed.
The position of the cist in the mound would seem to forbid the idea of an intrusive burial, otherwise I should certainly suppose such to be the fact.
At Aspatria, near St. Bees in Cumberland, a cist was discovered containing the skeleton of a man measuring seven feet from the crown of the head to the feet.
In Poland, tumuli consist of piles of massive stones; beneath each is a cist made of four large slabs, and containing as many as eight or ten urns full of calcined bones.
A very low door, always facing east, as if in honor of the rising sun, gives access to a cist in which the dead was laid.
Another interesting find is the small bronze dagger discovered with urns and cremated bones in a cist at Annaghkeen Cairn, County Galway, in 1908.
Model of cinerary urn, showing its position in cist over burnt bones and small vessel, Greenhills, Co.
At Annaghkeen, County Galway, a cremated burial was discovered in a cist associated with pottery and a small bronze knife-dagger and awl.
In the fine cist discovered at Greenhills, County Dublin, and now set up in the National Museum, a very remarkable little cup was found inside the large inverted cinerary urn (fig.
At the top of the cist there seemed to have been placed a fresh sod or turf, which still retained the impression of the head that had been pillowed on it ages before, though no parts of the skull, nor even any of the teeth, were found.
It was found in 1822 in a rude cist in the parish of Banchory-Devenich, Aberdeenshire.
In each corner of thecist a few flint flakes were carefully piled up into a little heap.
Another nearly similar to this, preserved in the local museum at Kirkwall, is said to have been found in a cist containing a human skeleton, and sticking in the skull, as if it had been the instrument of death.
The cist of the princess his wife is 2 inches shorter and 1 inch deeper, and the word 'Gvndrada' is very distinctly inscribed on the cover.
In the rest of Europe there is not a single barrow, dolmen, or cist of which the ancient traditional history is recorded; in Ireland there is hardly one of which it is not.
We see the stone cist with its great smooth flags, the rocky cairn, and huge barrow and massive walled cathair, but the interest which they invariably excite is only aroused to subside again unsatisfied.
It was carelessly opened a few years ago, and in the south-west side was found a human skeleton of gigantic proportions; but whether he had been in a cist or how laid was not noticed.
Its diameter was about twenty yards, having in the centre a cist surrounded by an irregular circle of stones about eleven yards across; the boulders are only very small, and have been covered up in the mound.
In another at Axevalla Heath were found nineteen bodies seated round the wall of the chamber, each in a separate small cist of stone slabs.
In the centre of the circle was found a cist cut in the underlying rock containing bluish earth and pieces of bone.
At every cist the road divides, for no one, except adherents of the Pembo sect, omits to pass it on the left, the direction in which the prayer mills revolve.
Lower down the valley we came to a mani-ringmo, a stone cist covered with mani slabs, and our men became quite lively at the sight, for it reminded them of their home.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "cist" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
