The tradition of sealing dead bodies in wooden boxes before burying them dates back to only the early 1920's, before that corpses were simply wrapped in "burial shrouds" usually made of cotton before internment...
George S Coffin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Coff... ) is generally credited with the invention of the coffin, though many others came up with the same idea at the same time as a way to minimize the spread of diseases we learned (in the 1920's) were probably associated with corpses...
Nice find.
The news - A child's coffin believed to date back to the 3rd Century AD has been found beneath a Leicestershire field by metal detectorists.
The Digging Up The Past club found the lead coffin and Roman coins at a farm in the west of the county.
Club spokesman David Hutchings said: "I knew it was something a bit special as soon as I saw it."
Archaeologists have now been appointed by the group to help remove the coffin and analyse the find.
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“Start Quote
We have to remember this is human remains - it is a child's body”
Wendy Scott Leicestershire County Council
Mr Hutchings said he and a group of volunteers had been keeping a nightly vigil at the site because they were "scared of looters coming in and taking the grave away".
The exact location of the find has not been revealed.
'Unique find'
"The excitement on the site was fantastic. We didn't realise what it was at first," he added.
"The council archaeologists have told us it is a unique find - a find of a lifetime really.
"It is sitting in the middle of a field at the moment. It is a bit vulnerable. So we will stay throughout the night keeping watch on it until it is removed."
The club has now gathered funding and appointed experts Archaeology Warwickshire to help extract and analyse the find.
Mr Hutchings said if permission was granted the excavation could take place by the end of the week.
Leicestershire County Council's finds liaison officer, Wendy Scott, said they had to ted
