The Lead Coffins of St. Mary’s: Burials of the Elite in the Early Chesapeake

Among the many archaeological discoveries made at Historic St. Mary’s City (HSMC), five rare seventeenth-century lead coffins stand out. Two of these burial containers were discovered at the end of the eighteenth century, and three more were uncovered in 1990. These are the only lead coffin burials from the 1600s yet found in North America. Who were these people, and why were they buried in a manner so different from thousands of other English settlers who died in early America? What can these burials tell us about life in seventeenth-century Maryland? This chapter summarizes the findings of a unique bioarchaeological