Definition of "nekropolis"

It was a lovely morning, as I said, and the Turks, who are early risers, were sitting on the graves of their kindred with their veiled wives and children, the marble turbans in that thickly-sown nekropolis less numerous than those of the living, who had come, not to mourn the dead who lay beneath, but to pass a day of idleness and pleasure on the spot endeared by their memories.

1836, [Nathaniel Parker Willis], “The Gipsy of Sardis. Part III.”, in Inklings of Adventure [...] In Two Volumes, volume II, New York, N.Y., London: Saunders and Otley, […], page 61

You are surrounded by what appear for an instant to be the myriad fragments of some mighty whole—but the gloom has deceived you—you are in the midst of a Nekropolis—a City of the Dead.

1837, [Julia] Pardoe, The City of the Sultan; and Domestic Manners of the Turks, in 1836. [...] In Two Volumes, volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 147

[T]he lower ground, situated between it and the inner city of Ortygia, [...] was employed [...] partly for the burial of the dead, which, according to invariable Grecian custom, was performed without the walls of the city. Extensive catacombs yet remain to mark the length of time during which this ancient Nekropolis served its purpose.

1850, George Grote, chapter LIX, in History of Greece, volume VII, London: John Murray, […], page 334

The ancient Greeks generally buried their dead in their nekropoleis or their gardens; often on the road leading to their towns, or before the gates. This pious feeling of affection and reverence for the dead, is a touching feature in the character of the modern Greeks.

1854, A[dolphus] L[ouis] Kœppen, “The Harbors and Naval Establishments of the Ancient Athenians—The Modern Peiræus”, in Sketches of a Traveller from Greece, Constantinople, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine, Chambersburg, Pa.: […] M. Kieffer & Co., page 19

The very large suburban kōmopolis or village-city of Umm el-Jimal, whose ancient name is unknown, had a Christian nekropolis at an early date, by 344, [...]

1995, Frank R. Trombley, “The Bostrene, Djebel Hauran, and the Ledjā”, in Hellenic Religion and Christianization c. 370–529 (Religious in the Graeco-Roman World; 115), 2nd edition, volume 2, Leiden, New York, N.Y.: E[vert] J[an] Brill, page 317

If the layer of the offerings is contemporary with the burials, then these are the earliest of the nekropolis, dating to the early third quarter of the seventh century.

2011, Alexandra[-Fani] Alexandridou, “Attic Early Black-figured Shapes”, in John M. Fossey, Angelo Geissen, editors, The Early Black-figured Pottery of Attika in Context (c. 630–570 BCE) (Monumenta Graeca et Romana; 17), Leiden: Brill, page 38, column 1