Coffin

Undertakers dancing with casket

A coffin

The Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner (Edwin Landseer, 1837)

A coffin (also known as a casket) is a box used to store dead bodies, either for burial or after cremation. Coffins used after cremation are what is known as an urn, where the ashes of the person are stored.

The word comes ultimately from Greek kophinos, a basket. In English, the word was not used in a funeral sense until the 1500s.

Any box used to bury the dead in is a coffin.

The main distinction between a coffin and a casket is the shape. A casket regularly has 6 – 8 sides while coffins have a rectangular shape.

Material and design

Many coffins are made out of materials such as wood, steel (which would have been used in Ancient Egyptian sarcophaguses), and many others. These types of coffins, for example wooden ones can have a rectangular or any other design, whereas a steel or any other metal used in making coffins (or sarcophaguses) could have the exact same but include religious marking added to make it look more appealing.

Coffin Media

A shop window display of coffins at a Polish funeral director's office
A casket showroom in Billings, Montana depicting split lid coffins
Body of Brazilian President Afonso Pena lying in state in his casket in the Catete Palace, 15 June 1909
Polish composer Karol Szymanowski lying in his casket, 1937
Daniel Mensah (Hello), 2006
Coffins as an aircraft, a hen, a crab, a cocoa pod in Teshie, Ghana
A coffin shop in Macau
A Universal Casket sales kiosk within a U.S. Costco warehouse retail store in California
Ancient Egyptian coffin, 1802–1640 BC
Coffin of prince Liu Wu, covered with jade panels. China, 154 BC

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