When I stood for the last time beside the royal sarcophagus, I sent all the workmen away.

The cathedral features iconostasis, hegumen's throne and carved royal sarcophagus.

This dark volcanic stone was favored in monumental construction for pavements inside mortuary temples at Giza, the site of the Great Pyramids, and also for royal sarcophagi.

And for the first time, a royal sarcophagus contains inscriptions, here slightly etched on the hollow interior of the vessel.

The royal sarcophagus stood in the centre of the chamber, a massive coffin hewn from a solid granite block.

He is currently working on royal sarcophagi in the Valley of the Kings.

His own life-support tank, a capsule of black, shiny plasteel, bulked like a royal sarcophagus at the center of the room, its tentacles of bundled and multiply redundant cables stretching away on all sides.

"It is the royal sarcophagus," said Emerson unnecessarily.

She was erroneously identified as an early medieval Danish queen, and for that reason was placed in a royal sarcophagus at the Saint Nicolai Church, Vejle, where she currently remains.

The royal sarcophagus at Frogmore was probably the pinnacle of its work, and at 30 tons one of the largest.