Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 6, 1994 TAG: 9404060111
SECTION: NATIONAL/INT PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Scientists on Tuesday identified the remains in 17th-century lead coffins unearthed in Maryland as members of the state's founding family - colonial Gov. Philip Calvert and his wife, Anne Wolsley.
Scientists had suspected as much ever since opening the coffins in 1992. They proved the identifications through intricate research that paints a vivid picture of these little-known people, down to the food they ate and the illnesses they suffered.
``We know how his hair was trimmed, how his beard was shaved, ... information you simply cannot find in any historical record,'' said Douglas Owsley, a forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution, where scientists displayed parts of the skeletons Tuesday.
``The 17th century has been almost like a black hole. This was an opportunity to examine the bones and learn from the people themselves.''
Archaeologists have discovered fewer than 100 skeletons from the 17th century. Owsley said that, thanks to the lead coffins, none was as well-preserved as the Calverts' and that of a baby girl buried in a third coffin next to them. Scientists suspect she was Calvert's 6-month-old daughter from a second marriage.
The coffins were unearthed in historic St. Mary's City, site of Maryland's 17th-century capital.
Scientists determined the couple's height, muscular build, whether they were left- or right-handed. Pollen in the coffins told the season of death. Using nuclear isotopes, scientists discovered traces of both European and American diets, a sign the pair had immigrated about 20 years earlier.
The Calverts are the only people who fit all the clues, said project director Henry Miller.
Finally learning the personal qualities of the couple, about whom very little is known, fills a great gap, said St. Mary's historian Lois Carr.
Calvert was sent to Maryland from England by the second Lord Baltimore to re-establish a Catholic government after radical Protestants seized the colony in the 1650s. He was governor from 1660-61 and the colony's chancellor, second in command, for 25 years.
About his wife, all historians know is that her family suffered religious persecution in England; her grandmother was burned to death. They don't even know her exact birth date.
Although the skeletons were well-preserved, someone apparently had tried to embalm Calvert because his bones are crystallized from the waist up. So researchers couldn't get a picture of him from his skull - a bitter disappointment to historians because no painting of him exists.
He died in 1682, around age 55, but with no signs of long-term illness.
The researchers unveiled a sculpture of his wife, made from her skeletal measurements, showing a blue-eyed, brown-haired, petite woman. The bones show she died around 1680 in her late 50s, apparently in agony.
She had broken her leg and the bone twisted before healing, leaving a permanent limp and a painful abscess. She had lost all but five teeth and was very malnourished. Her body contained arsenic, a sign of early medicine, and low levels of iron, a sign of bleeding.
But she was obviously cherished, Carr said: Someone tied a silk ribbon in a bow around her hands, wrapped her in fine linens and sprinkled rosemary, the herb of remembrance, over her before sealing her coffin.
by CNB