Shaft and chamber tomb

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A Shaft and chamber tomb is a type of chamber tomb used by some ancient peoples for burial of the dead. They consist of a shaft dug into the outcrops of rock with a square or round chamber excavated at the bottom where the dead were placed.

Examples include those at Xemxija in Malta which are Neolithic and Dayeh-va-dokhtar tombs in Fars province of Iran. They were also employed by the Ancient Egyptians. The late pre-Classic and early Classic Era cultures of west Mexico (what are now the states of Colima, Nayarit, and Jalisco) used these kind of tombs and much of what little is known about these cultures is known from art objects found in these tombs. As a result, these early west Mexican cultures are often referred to as the "shaft-and-chamber culture".

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