''Sit tibi terra levis'' (commonly abbreviated as ''S·T·T·L'' or ''S.T.T.L.'' or ''STTL'') is a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

inscription used on funerary items from

ancient Roman In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...

times onwards. The English language translation is approximately "May the earth rest lightly on you" or "May the ground be light to you"; the more literal, word by word, translation, is ''sit'' "may be", ''tibi'' "to you", ''terra'' "ground, soil", ''levis'' "light" (in the sense of the opposite of "heavy"). The origin of the phrase can be found in

Euripides Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars ...

' ''

Alcestis Alcestis (; Ancient Greek: Ἄλκηστις, ') or Alceste, was a princess in Greek mythology, known for her love of her husband. Her life story was told by pseudo-Apollodorus in his '' Bibliotheca'', and a version of her death and return fr ...

''; the phrase in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

is , ''koupha soi chthon epanothe pesoi''. Euripides' phrase "underwent all kinds of variations", especially in Latin poets like

Propertius Sextus Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet of the Augustan age. He was born around 50–45 BC in Assisium and died shortly after 15 BC. Propertius' surviving work comprises four books of '' Elegies'' ('). He was a friend of the poets Gallu ...

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the ...

Martial Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of ''Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 an ...

, and

Persius Aulus Persius Flaccus (; 4 December 3424 November 62 AD) was a Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satires, he shows a Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he considered to be the stylistic abuses of his po ...

; cf. At the Perseus Project. although some minor variants like ''Sit Ei Terra Levis'' – abbreviated to ''SETL'' – are attested, and excluding

Roman Africa Roman Africa may refer to the following areas of Northern Africa which were part of the Imperium Romanum and/or the Western/Byzantine successor empires : ; in the unified Roman empire : * Africa (Roman province), with the great metropolis Cart ...

which developed its own stock formula (''Ossa Tibi Bene Quiescant'' – ''OTBQ'' – or similar), in Latin

epitaph An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...

s the phrase became formulaic, acquiring the aforementioned abbreviation. On the contrary, in

epitaphs, it never became such a fixed formula; it is found in various forms, e.g. The Latin formula was usually located at the end of the inscription; at the beginning, another formulaic phrase was often used: '' Dis Manibus'', i.e. "To the spirits of the dead"; first thus, then shortened to ''Dis Man'' and finally to ''DM''. The latter, along with ''STTL'', had replaced in about the mid-first century CE, the older model, common during the first century BCE and first century CE, of ending the inscription with '' Hic situs est'' or ''Hic

sita Sita (; ) also called as Janaki and Vaidehi is a Hindu goddess and the female protagonist of the Hindu epic, '' Ramayana''. She is the consort of Rama, the avatar of the god Vishnu, and is regarded as a form of Vishnu's consort, Lakshmi ...

est'' ("he ''or'' she lies here"; abbreviated to ''HSE''), and the name of the dead person.

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