A
cist (pronounced 'kissed') is a small stone-built coffin-like box used to hold the bodies of the dead during the
Bronze Age in
Britain. The sides are usually built of single slabs. A cist may have been associated with other monuments, perhaps under a
cairn or long barrow
?. It would not be uncommon to find several cists close together within the same cairn or barrow. Occasionally, ornaments have been found within a cist under excavation, which could indicate the wealth of the interred individual