HAMPSHIRE, ENGLAND—Scientists from Oxford University have tested a small sample taken from a full head of braided hair discovered in a lead coffin in Romsey Abbey in the early nineteenth century. The hair, complete with small pieces of scalp, has been kept in a display case in the church. “It seems based on this analysis that there was pine resin in the hair of the person,” Thibaut Deviese said in a report by BBC News. It is not clear, however, if the pine resin was used as a hair-care treatment or if it had been applied in a funerary ritual. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the person died in the mid to late Saxon era, between A.D. 895 and 1123. The tests also suggest that the person ate a diet that included fish. “The fact that this person had a marine diet could be very specific to perhaps members of the monastic community,” explained Frank Green, archaeological advisor to Romsey Abbey. Some think the hair could belong to St. Ethelflaeda, the first abbess and the abbey’s patron saint. To read about another discovery from the same area of England, go to "The Ring’s the Thing."
