Tales From The Crypt

The 55-year-old woman died of natural causes but in agony nonetheless. She had suffered from arthritis, osteoporosis and malnutrition; her teeth were rotten; and an improperly set broken leg had led to a huge bone abscess. The infant, probably a girl, was malnourished too. Her last weeks had been marked by spinal meningitis and a brain inflammation. The man had been sedentary and overweight; his death at around 50 was sudden, perhaps from a heart attack.

Such autopsy results make it sound as if the three lived in a poor neighborhood or an underdeveloped country. Actually, they were quite wealthy, but they lived in a different era: the colonial period in America. Their remains were found in 1992 in unmarked graves in a Maryland cornfield, and thanks to their sealed lead coffins, they were unsually well preserved.

Who were these people, and what could their remains tell scholars about early American life? The effort to find out included scientists form a dozen universities, the Army and NASA. Last week the researchers pronounced the mystery solved. The man was Philip Calvert, an early Governor of colonial Maryland, who died in 1682; the woman was his first wife, Anne Calvert; and the baby presumably was his daughter from a second marriage.

The discovery provided grim evidence of the harshness of 17th century life. Hair analysis showed that Anne Calvert took medicines containing arsenic and that she had an iron deficiency -- suggesting that she had been subjected to bloodletting for an illness. After more study, including DNA analysis to confirm the child's identity, the Calverts will be reburied -- this time in properly marked graves.