A ROMAN wooden coffin has been unearthed in London, the only example of its kind found in Britain.

Archaeologists expressed excitement that it had survived intact, centuries after other examples had disintegrated without trace. In dating from AD120, the new find is an unusually early example of a Roman burial.

It was not until the 3rd century AD that the Roman Britons generally buried their dead. Prior to this they usually favoured cremation. The skeleton belonged to a man over the age of 25, at a time when only 10 per cent lived beyond the age of 45.

The coffin, which went on display yesterday at the Museum of London, was found during building work in Holborn, on a steep side of the River Fleet, one of the many rivers that flow beneath London’s streets to the Thames.

Although the coffin was made of re-used old oak and included only a modest wine flagon, it does not necessarily reflect a low status. The skeleton shows a degeneration that tends to indicate a high-calorie diet.

Jenny Hall, the Museum of London’s Roman curator, said: “That could mean a higher social rank. Grave goods don’t necessarily mean you’re rich. Only a quarter of people buried had grave goods.”

As the wood that lay under the body survived because it was kept in wet conditions without oxygen getting to it, the weight of the skeleton left an impression of the ribs, spine and knee-joints. “It gives it rather a ghostly appearance,” Mrs Hall said.

The coffin dates from a time when Roman London had passed its peak but was still quite prosperous. Merchants were regularly coming to the city. John Pearce, a Roman archaeologist specialising in death and burial from the Department of Classics at King’s College, London, was excited by the discovery: “A coffin survival is absolutely exceptional.”

He said that burials are sometimes associated with people who converted to Christianity, although it was never a major religion in Roman Britain and had no real presence until the 4th century. “This could have been an early Christian coming from somewhere else, but it’s unlikely. In Britain, there was no other evidence of Christianity until much later.”

He added: “The most interesting thing about it is the preservation of the timber coffin. Normally if someone was buried in a timber coffin, the wood rots and all that survives is the nails.

“The burial itself is interesting. It was an early 2nd century AD burial. We know that from the wine flagon buried with the body. This can potentially tell us a lot about the culture of the person.”

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