Experts Test 17th-Century Coffin for Samples of Unpolluted Air

Scientists say that further tests will be needed to determine if air samples taken Friday from a 17th-Century sealed lead coffin are pre-Industrial Revolution quality.

The seal of the coffin found buried under the site of Colonial America’s first Roman Catholic chapel appeared to be intact, but preliminary tests of the air were inconclusive, said Benjamin C. Bradlee, the former Washington Post editor who is chairman of the Historic St. Mary’s City Commission.

Researchers drilled tiny holes in the coffin and removed the air trapped inside. Scientists hope the samples contain unpolluted air that will help them understand how man-made chemicals have altered the atmosphere.

The samples will be taken to NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., for further testing, Bradlee said.

“The scientists are very excited because the pressure held,” but that doesn’t mean the samples were uncontaminated, Bradlee said. “We really don’t know that yet.”

The coffin breached Friday was the last of three found in 1990 under the site of the Great Brick Chapel, which was built in the 1660s. The remains inside are believed to be members of Maryland’s founding family, the Calverts.

Holes were drilled into the first two coffins earlier in the week, but scientists found that both had been damaged and only modern air was inside. The three coffins are scheduled to be opened next month.

Scientists have tried to get pristine air samples from Egyptian burial chambers, old wine bottles, glacial ice and even air bubbles in glass. The chance of finding a sample of uncontaminated air is perhaps one in 1,000, said Joel S. Levine, a research scientist in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s atmospheric sciences division.