Page 48 - Maryland Historical Trust - Archaeology Colonial MD

figure 34
Coffin forms identified through the excavation of burials at the brick chapel site. These range in date between ca. 1635 and ca. 1740.
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some distance apart. For people first wrapped in a shroud and then placed in a coffin, there was less support and the feet bones would become jum- bled but the feet and knees generally remained close together. Thus, we were able to figure out how each person had been buried.
A number of the burials had straight pins present, but the assumption that they were relat- ed to shrouds was wrong. Instead, the pins were mostly found around the head and were used to attach face cloths or chin straps. Exposure of the face prior to burial had become the more accept- ed practice by the 1600s and this was achieved with shroud burials by using small separate cloths that were affixed with pins. About half of the excavated early period graves were interred in shrouds only and the other half had wooden cof- fins. One person from the first phase is unusual in that he was buried without shroud or coffin. By the Brick Chapel period, 90% had coffins and all of the early 18th-century graves were coffined. Thus, there was a clear trend toward more coffin burial through time in early Maryland, as is also found in England.
The meticulous recording of soil stains and nails allowed Tim Riordan to reconstruct how the coffins at St. Mary’s had been made. This showed that there were eight different types used. Some were boxes, others had gabled lids and shapes ranged from rectangular to hexagonal to a rare anthropomorphic shape. The latter had a head extension and date to the first period at the site; there are three examples. Two of these are in a single grave, with one stacked on top of the other. They are male and female and this burial may evidence a married couple who died at the same time. Coffins with a head extension are more common with lead coffins in England, but recently two more wooden examples thought to date to 1608 were found at Jamestown. There is a surprising range of coffin types in the St. Mary’s Brick Chapel cemetery but this gives way to uni- formity by the end of the 17th century when only
one form — the hexagonal coffin (E in figure 34) — becomes standard. This trend from diversity of form to uniformity may be related to a high immigration rate of people from many areas of England up until the last quarter of the century. A native born population gradually developed in Maryland in the late 1600s and acceptance of a single coffin shape might reflect the development of a more stable and maturing colonial culture.
Another intriguing finding is that people in early Maryland were buried with their hands joined at the pelvis. This is in strong contrast to Spanish colonial burials where the hands are uniformly crossed on the chest. While both populations in the samples were primarily Cath- olic, this reveals that there are identifiable ethnic differences in mortuary behavior.
Two additional types of burials were found at the chapel. In two cases, individuals had died and were buried elsewhere, their remains later dug up and reinterred at the chapel. One was in a box and interred outside at the altar end of the building, touching the brick foundation. The other buried inside the chapel was a bundle burial, apparent- ly with the bones wrapped in cloth without any wooden container. Both suggest a desire of the deceased to be buried in blessed ground that was later carried out by friends or relatives.
The other burial type is of great rarity — lead coffins. Three individuals were found in the chap- el, buried next to each other in the north transept of the structure. One was a larger coffin, the mid- dle one next to it was of medium size and a small one lay next to it. No names or other identifica- tion marks could be seen on the coffins. Since no archaeologists had previously found colonial lead coffins in North America, the excavators took the difficult step of reburying them to give time for planning a quality investigation.
Designing a project to fully realize the research potential took two years. Over that peri- od, numerous scientists, engineers and specialists were asked to join the investigation team from