Shaft and chamber tomb
A shaft and chamber tomb is a type of chamber tomb used by some ancient peoples for burial of the dead. They consist of a shaft dug into the outcrops of rock with a square or round chamber excavated at the bottom where the dead were placed. These chambers can consist of a single shaft and chamber like the Mexican tombs or sometimes quite elaborate as was built in ancient Egypt.
Shaft and chamber tombs are found at Xemxija in Malta which are Neolithic and Dayeh-va-dokhtar tombs in Fars province of Iran. They were also employed by the ancient Egyptians. The late pre-Classic and early Classic Era cultures of west Mexico (what are now the states of Colima, Nayarit, and Jalisco) used tombs of this kind and much of what little is known about these cultures is known from art objects found in these tombs. As a result, these early West Mexico cultures are sometimes referred to as the West Mexico shaft tomb culture.
Early Egyptian Shaft and Chamber Tombs The first shaft and chamber tomb known to have been used by the ancient Egyptians is the mastaba tomb. This was a simple tomb with two shafts, with a square chamber at the bottom of each shaft. Another shaft and chamber tomb is the Tomb of Osiris. Originally discovered in the 1880s, it was cursorily sketched by a Spanish-Italian unit the help of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, which excavated the tomb further. Some say that this tomb dates back to 760-525 BC. It is hard to quite put an exact date but researchers were able to narrow it down by similar tombs. The Tomb of Osiris has three major shafts and eight chambers.
Western Mexico and Central American Tombs The Tombs of Western Mexico and Central America have similar tombs and in part of Ecuador and Columbia these practices were used until the 20th Century. [1]
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References
Sources
http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/1-CompleteSet/MES-78-ShaftTombs.pdf