Eboracum lead coffin. Variations on this combination exist. The gypsum casts, when found undisturbed, frequently retain a cast impression of the deceased in a textile shroud – surviving examples of both adults and children show a selection of textiles used to wrap the body before interment, but usually plain woven cloth. The high number of sarcophagi from "Eboracum" has provided a large number of these casts, in some cases with cloth surviving adhered to the gypsum. Two gypsum burials at York have shown evidence for frankincense and another clear markers of Pistacia spp. (mastic) resin used as part of the funerary
Eboracum the area known as the Brigantes by the Romans became a Roman client state. When their leadership changed becoming more hostile to Rome, Roman General Quintus Petillius Cerialis led the Ninth Legion north from Lincoln across the Humber. Eboracum was founded in 71 AD when Cerialis and the Ninth Legion constructed a military fortress (castra) on flat ground above the River Ouse near its junction with the River Foss. In the same year Cerialis was appointed Governor of Britain. A legion at full strength at that time numbered some 5,500 men, and provided new trading opportunities for enterprising local people,