An Early Modern Coffin Emblem From Ribe

A quick post for all you coffin geeks out there.

Today I’ll share a little goodie with you: We’ve found an early modern coffin emblem in situ on the collapsed coffin lid of this (most likely) early18th century burial who goes by the name of X1007.

The iron was very decayed and it turned out to be impossible to remove in less than about 300 pieces, so we decided to uncover and clean the piece in situ and document it at once. It took me almost two hours to clean the very fragile metal in order to take this photograph.

So far all attempts to decipher the swirls and turns of the ornament have failed, but it could be some kind of mirrored monogram. Or maybe it’s just flowers…