A Roman Coffin at Westminster Abbey Held a Man Who Lived 700 Years Too Late

LONDON, Oct 22 — Westminster Abbey's consultant archaeologist, Prof. Warwick Rodwell, has concluded in new research reported on Oct. 21 that the skeleton found inside a Roman sarcophagus on the Abbey grounds most likely belonged to Aelfwig, an abbot who died around 1020.

The limestone coffin carries a Latin inscription to Valerius Amandinus, a wealthy Briton who lived in the city around 300 to 400 AD, according to the Abbey. Smithsonian Magazine translates it as a dedication from his sons, Valerius Superventor and Valerius Marcellus, "for their father."

The coffin was first found in 1820 and formally excavated in 1869 from what is now a grassy area along the north side of the nave, The Guardian reported. That spot was once the yard of a sacristy built by Henry III.

The puzzle was that the coffin and its contents did not match. The sarcophagus is Roman, but its lid had been recut with a large Latin cross of a type dating to the 10th or 11th century. No other Roman artifacts turned up in later digs of the area. "That was not its original place of burial," Rodwell told The Guardian, suggesting it first sat in a wall recess of a mausoleum elsewhere.

The new work began in 2018, when the sarcophagus was prepared for display in the Abbey's Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries. It was taken to a laboratory and its lid lifted. "And there, inside it, was the skeleton," Rodwell told The Guardian. Written records had suggested the bones were lost.

Human bone specialist James Young Langthorne found the man was 35 to 49 years old and about 5 feet 9 inches tall, the Abbey said. A Victorian assessment had described a "robust young man" of about 5 feet 7 who was no older than 30. Carbon dating at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre put the bones at 987 to 1052 AD, confirming the coffin was reused in the late Saxon period.

Rodwell, writing in the Journal of the British Archaeological Association, argues the burial was too grand for anyone but an abbot. "Nobody of lower rank would have been buried in anything like that," he told The Guardian. His leading candidate is Aelfwig; the other is Aelfwig's successor, Wulfnoth, who died in 1049. "We have two viable contenders for the occupant of the sarcophagus," Rodwell said in a statement quoted by Smithsonian.

Reusing old coffins was not unheard of. Smithsonian notes that the monk Bede described a seventh-century abbess being buried in a Roman-era marble coffin found near Cambridge.

What happened to Valerius Amandinus himself remains unknown. The sarcophagus is on permanent display in the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries.

### What We Know
- The sarcophagus is inscribed to Valerius Amandinus, a Roman-era Briton of around 300 to 400 AD.
- Carbon dating puts the skeleton inside at 987 to 1052 AD.
- The man was 35 to 49 and about 5 feet 9 inches tall.
- Rodwell names Abbot Aelfwig (died around 1020) as most likely, with Wulfnoth (died 1049) as the alternative.

Reported by The Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine, Westminster Abbey

Clown verdict: Previous owner's name still on it, but the price was right.

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<small>Photo: Pragdon, Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0. Clown emoji: OpenMoji, CC BY-SA 4.0.</small>

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