Using Metallurgical Analysis Of Funerary Hardware To Inform On Production Techniques

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Investigating Cultural Aspects of Historic Mortuary Archaeology: Perspectives from Europe and North America", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The 2017 excavation of the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia’s burial ground (1702-1859) recovered handles and funerary artifacts from just under 500 burials. Funerary hardware recovered matches at least seven types of coffin handle grip plate from the Tuesly and Cooper catalog published in 1783. Scanning election microscope (SEM) analysis was undertaken in two separate laboratories to identify the elemental composition of a sample of grip plates (n=10). Some grip plates which are direct matches to the Tuesly and Cooper (1783) catalog are assumed to be produced in London or Birmingham but others have patterns that are not identified in this catalog. Some significant differences in composition and hardware construction were noted, particularly the use of chromium plating on some plates and tin on others. Comparison with analyses of some examples excavated in Britain are also helpful in identifying the variability of production techniques.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Investigating Cultural Aspects of Historic Mortuary Archaeology: Perspectives from Europe and North America   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow