ROMANO-BRITISH LONDON More important, because better recorded, discoveries of stone coffins just beyond the western and eastern limits of London-within-the-Walls remain to be noticed. The first took place in 1877 during excavations for the medical school of St. Bartholomew's Hospital (Plan A, 43), at the north end of Giltspur Street. At a depth of 1 1 ft. two stone coffins,^' each 6 ft. 8 in. long and 2 ft. 4J in. wide, were found close together, lying approximately east and west, the material a coarse oolite, and the lids of massive construction. One contained a leaden coffin of a woman, and has been noticed above as showing the contemporaneous character of at least some of the inhumations in stone and leaden receptacles ; and the other, which lay to the north, is remarkable as having contained the bodies of a man and woman, the head of the former being at the west end (facing east), and that of the latter at the east. The male skeleton betokened enormous strength, and an age of over fifty years, the woman being somewhat younger. Near the east end of the interment were found two fragments of Roman brick and a short pillar broken off", and having a circular moulding ; but it is doubtful whether this architectural fragment had the same significance as those in modern cemeteries, or was in any way connected with the interment. The use of a single sarcophagus for more than one body was apparently not uncommon at that period, for a similar case is recorded at Upper Clapton, where a male and female skeleton ocoaiHCEcaiGcn: ^ESBaicocacoaininiraintKana] MaioEcuiaBaiainEnES Fig. 4. — Lead Coffin-lid, Haydon Square (Length, 52 in.) were buried together in the north and south direction ; while as many as three (two males and a female) were found in one grave at Old Ford.™ Like one at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, the sarcophagus" found at Haydon Square (Plan A, 44), near the Minories, and now preserved in the British Museum, also contained a leaden coffin, in which the body of a boy had been deposited. His age at death has been variously estimated as between seven and twelve years, but he evidently belonged to a family of wealth and importance. The leaden cover of the coffin (fig. 4) was ornamented with the peculiar scallop-shell pattern to be discussed below ; and the sarcophagus (fig. 5), which is of massive proportions, has in the centre of the front a circular medallion of a young male head in profile, but whether this was intended as a portrait of the deceased is at least doubtful, for the inner coffin was not made to measure, and had to be trimmed to fit the sarcophagus. The latter may have been a stock pattern, and would in any case have taken ^ One is now preserved with its cover, the lead coffin and pillar, on the library staircase of the Hospital. Load, and M'ldd. Arch. Soc. Trans, iii, 196. '" Ibid, iii, 211. " Joum. Brit. Arch. Assoc, ix, 161, pi. 23-7. The coffin with its contents was buried in the crypt of Holy Trinity Church, but" the lid is preserved with the sarcophagus. I 17 3
