1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Necropolis

NECROPOLIS, a cemetery (q.v.) or burying-place, literally a “city of the dead” (Gr. νεκρός, corpse, and πόλις, city). Apart from the occasional application of the word to modern cemeteries outside large towns, the term is chiefly used of burial-grounds near the sites of the centres of ancient civilizations.