Cemeteries were located outside settlements. They were often symbolically separated from them by geographic features like rivers or valleys. A short papyrus found in a tomb at Tal-Virtù in Malta suggests a belief that the dead had to cross a body of water to enter the afterlife. Tombs could take the form of "fossae" (rectangular graves cut into the earth or bedrock), "pozzi" (shallow, round pits), and hypogea (rock-cut chambers with stone benches on which the deceased was laid). There are some built tombs, all from before the sixth century BC. Tombs are often surmounted by small funerary stelae and baetyls.