Over a century ago, a log coffin was found in 1899 in the village of Bagicz in northwestern Poland after it fell from an eroding cliff. The coffin contained the remains of an ancient European “princess.”
She was given the nickname of “Princess of Bagicz” because of the unique way she was buried and how well-preserved the grave goods were.
Researchers determined that she had died in Roman times, but multiple analyses have given differing dates across nearly 300 years.
Log coffins tend to disintegrate over time, so they are rarely salvaged from archaeological digs. The one found in Bagicz is the only preserved wooden coffin of its kind from the Roman Iron Age.
The coffin and its lid were both carved from a single tree trunk. Its location in a wet, humid environment likely helped it survive all the way to now. It came from a larger cemetery associated with the Wielbark culture.
A skeleton of an adult woman was laid to rest on a cowhide inside the coffin. She was buried with a bronze pin, a pair of bronze bracelets, a necklace made of glass and amber beads.
An analysis of the grave goods conducted in the 1980s suggested that the woman died between A.D. 110 and 160.
However, in 2018, an analysis of her tooth put the date of her death between 113 B.C. and A.D. 65. If this were the case, she would be much older than the artifacts in her coffin.
More recently, a team of researchers utilized dendrochronological analysis to measure the tree rings in the coffin’s wood. They also compared the coffin’s wood to chronological sequences from northwest Poland. They estimated that the oak tree used to make the coffin was chopped down in 120 A.D.
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The radiocarbon date from the woman’s tooth is likely incorrect. It could have been thrown off if the woman had consumed a diet largely consisting of marine organisms.
Carbon stored in oceans is older than carbon on land, so radiocarbon dates can be thrown off by up to 1,200 years. As a result, someone may appear to have died earlier than they really did.
Stable isotope analysis of the woman’s bones revealed a significant amount of animal protein and freshwater fish. Her exact cause of death is unclear, but she did have osteoarthritis, which may have been due to overuse from working.
She might not have been a real princess after all. She was between the ages of 25 and 35 at the time of her death.
“The burial provides rare insight into wooden coffin preservation in the Wielbark culture, offering valuable data on funerary practices and environmental conditions that allowed for the exceptional survival of organic materials,” wrote the researchers.
The findings were published in the journal Archaeometry.
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
