COFFIN (Lat. cophinus, Gr. 1zofinos, in both languages signifying a basket, coffer, or chest, but never a coffin). In the ordinary English sense of the word, a C. is a chest or box in which dead bodies are buried or deposited in but the term is also applied to a mold of paste for a pie, and, in printing, to the wooden frame which incloses the stone on which the form is imposed, In farriery, it signifies the hollow part of a horse's hoof. It is in the first of these significations alone that we shall consider it here.
It has been keenly disputed amongst scholars, whether it was more usual with the Greeks to bury their dead, or to burn them (see BURIAL); but both customs unquestiona bly prevailed, and coffins, in the modern sense, were consequently known in Greece. They were called by various names (soroi, pueloi, etc.), and composed of various materi als, the most common being baked clay, or earthenware. Their forms also varied, sometimes resembling those which we use, sometimes consisting of a narrow triangular box, the undermost side of course being considerably broader than the others. In Rome, the ancient practice was to bury the dead, not to burn them; though under the empire, and previous to the recognition of Christianity, the latter custom became almost universal. The C. in Rome was called area or loculus, and was frequently made of stone, sometimes of a peculiar kind of stone brought from Assos, in Troas, which was said to consume all the body except the teeth in forty days, and which, from this circum stance, was called sarcophagus—an eater of flesh. See SARCOPHAGUS. 3lany Roman stone-coffins have been found in this country. The simplest of all coffins was that used by the British Celts and other rude nations, consisting of unliewn stones set on their edges, so as to cover the sides and ends of the grave, one or more flat stones being then laid over the body to form a lid. To these succeeded stone-( offins, which were commonly
used for persons of the higher classes in Saxon times, and throughout the whole of the middle ages.
From Bede, however, we learn that the Saxons occasionally employed wood: and the common people, both then and in the subsequent Norman and English eras, were simply wrapped in cloth, and so put into the ground. The same custom seems to have been followed with monks down to a comparatively recent period. Stone-coffins were generally of a single block, commonly tapering from the upper end. In the hollow for the reception of the body, there was generally a part peculiarly fitted for the head, and a hole in the bottom to allow of the juices of the decaying body to escape. These coffins, for the most part, were not buried very deeply in the earth. and were frequently placed so near the surface that the lids were which, within a church, often formed part of the pavement. Sometimes they were even above the ground altogether, and thus became the originals of altar-tombs. These lids were often covered with elaborate sculpture, representing crosses and other ornaments. Leaden coffins were occasionally used in the middle ages, as those recently brought to light in the temple church in London testify, but the slight wooden cases now in common use appear to be of comparatively recent origin. See Strutt's Manners and Oustona, and Gough's Sepul chral Monuments.