We Do Find a Lot of Coffin Handles

One of the features that we discover repeatedly in the early modern graves in the former cloister in Ribe is large iron coffin handles.

In the pictures you can see the iron coffin handles in situ around the skeleton X1016. As usual there are eight of them - two in each end and three on each side of the coffin. Below Troels and Helene are busy preparing X1016 for photography:

It seems that these coffin handles are just normal furniture handles like the ones used for chests and other furniture. Below is an example of a similar handle on the side of a wardrobe from 1802. It is of a slightly different type but it gives a decent impression of what 18th and 19th century coffins would have looked like on the outside:

Not a mere ornament, these handles could actually be used to lift and carry the furniture and coffins on which they were mounted

It appears that some of the older (pre-1700) coffins are mostly fitted with iron rings - probably for lowering the coffin into the grave with ropes. It is not clear to me whether this does indeed show an older burial practice or if the change is merely in coffin style?

Dear reader: Your opinion is welcome!