An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary. The greatly reduced space taken up by an ossuary means that it is possible to store the remains of many more people in a single tomb than if the original coffins were left as is.
Persian
In Persia, the Zoroastrians used a deep well for this function from the earliest times (c. 3,000 years ago) and called it astudan (literally, "the place for the bones"). There are many rituals and regulations in the Zoroastrian faith concerning the astudans. Among the pre-7th-century Sogdians in the region of central Asia, the name for an ossuary was tanbar.
The remains of conscript Thanasis Nicolaou, who was murdered in 2005, have been placed in an ossuary at a Limassol monastery. His mother, Andriana Nicolaou, who is currently in Jerusalem, announced the news on social media ... ....