A Wealthy Roman Woman Buried in an Elaborate Lead Coffin Found in England
A new exhibition in Colchester, England, site of the first capital of Roman Britain, explores the “Lexden Lady” and her collection of treasures.
Archaeologists in England discovered the remains of a high-status woman in an elaborate Roman burial.
The woman, who has been nicknamed the “Lexden Lady,” was buried in a decorated lead coffin alongside numerous grave goods. Archaeologists suspect the burial site dates to the late Roman period, which lasted from around the middle of the third century to the middle of the fifth century C.E.
The find will be the focus of a new temporary exhibition called “The Lexden Lady: From Burial to Biography,” the Colchester Archaeological Trust announced this month.
“This is certainly the most spectacular [burial] I have seen,” Robert Masefield, archaeology director at Tetra Tech Consulting, the company that helped excavate the site, says in the statement. “The young woman was clearly cherished by her family and by her community.”
Archaeologists discovered the burial in Colchester, a city in Essex, England, which served as the first capital of Roman Britain.
Archaeologists discovered the burial in Colchester, a city in Essex, England, about 70 miles from London that served as the first capital of Roman Britain. They unearthed the remains in 2023 while excavating the site of the former Essex County Hospital, which is being redeveloped for housing.
The woman, who was likely in her late 20s or 30s when she died, was buried with jet hairpins, a group of rare glass flasks and exotic resins.
Hairpins held the woman’s hair in place for the burial.
The woman may have grown up in Colchester, which was known as Camulodunum during Roman times, and she was likely a member of the city’s “Roman aristocracy,” writes Daniel Rees for the Colchester Gazette. The discovery offers “a rare and personal connection to the people of Roman Colchester,” according to the statement.
Archaeologists have unearthed lead coffins from across the Roman Empire, per a blog post from Colchester Archaeological Trust. But most decorated versions found so far have come from southeast England, with motifs ranging from rosettes and vases to figures related to Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and revelry.
Overall, lead coffins seem to have been relatively rare in Roman Britain, accounting for roughly 2 percent of inhumation burials discovered so far, according to the archaeologists. They appear to have been reserved for high-status individuals, and were used for both pagan and Christian burials. Based on the grave goods and the orientation of the coffin, archaeologists suspect the Lexden Lady was a pagan.
The Lexden Lady’s coffin was carefully decorated with scallop shells, circles and a bead-and- double-reel-linear motif arranged in a diamond pattern, according to the blog post.
“The scallop shell motifs are thought to relate to the soul’s last journey across the ocean to the Blessed Isles,” according to the archaeologists. “The circles may have been representations of the sun or the moon.”
Based on soil staining and the presence of iron nails, researchers think the lead coffin was originally encased in an outer coffin made of wood. It was likely extremely heavy and would have been “very difficult” to lower into the grave, per the archaeologists.
Inside the coffin, archaeologists also found traces of frankincense and gypsum, which suggests her body was treated with these “valuable imported substances” before burial, per the announcement.
“The decorated coffin is a beautiful object in its own right, but it is the combination of the coffin, the grave goods and the scientific evidence that makes this burial so compelling,” says Adam Wightman, director of archaeology at Colchester Archaeological Trust, in the statement. “Together they allow us to glimpse not just a person, but the care, ritual and belief that surrounded her burial in late Roman Colchester.”
In Roman Britain, the dead were sometimes covered in liquid gypsum before burial. As the mineral hardened, it created a plaster cast of the person’s body and garments. Researchers have discovered gypsum burials in other parts of the world, but the practice seems to have been especially prevalent in England, particularly in the area around York, located in the northeast part of the country.
Experts aren’t sure why gypsum was used in burials, but it’s often a helpful tool for researchers, since it can preserve key details about people who lived in the distant past.
In 2023, researchers used 3D scanning technology to investigate a 1,700-year-old gypsum cast of two adults and one child—likely, two parents and their offspring. Though their bodies had long since disintegrated, the scans revealed important details—including that each individual had been wrapped in textiles before burial.
“We are very lucky to have this casing, as it shows the precise position of the bodies and their relationship to each other exactly at the moment when the liquid gypsum was poured over them and the lid of the coffin closed about 1,700 years ago,” Maureen Carroll, an archaeologist at the University of York who worked on the project, told Live Science’s Hannah Kate Simon.
Researchers also found a hand print with fingers preserved in gypsum in a 1,700-year-old burial. The discovery suggests gypsum was sometimes applied as a soft paste, rather than heated and poured over the body as a liquid.
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