The further we get into the Middle Ages the more difficult it becomes to ascertain the antiquity of a coffin. After the eleventh and twelfth centuries, if not the tenth, the lids are ornamented with roughly-executed sculpture work, crosses in bas-relief, triangular facets, indistinct tracery work which have a distinct resemblance to the Roman sarcophagi. The ancient cemeteries of the French provinces also contain coffins moulded in plaster; and the Cluny Museum has some interesting specimens of these coffins, which were in use from the ninth to the fourteenth century. Their sides are roughly decorated with very primitive ornaments, round, lozenge-shaped, and convoluted, with emblems which enable us to ascertain approximatively their date of execution. Thus, when a plaster coffin is decorated with the fleur-de-lis, we may be sure that it cannot be of earlier origin than the thirteenth century. In the last few years of the twelfth century was invented a kind of stone coffin, hewn outside in such a way as to produce the shape of the head, and to represent the whole body as enveloped in its shroud, just like a mummy. In the early part of the fourteenth century personages of rank were buried in stone coffins lined with lead. In the time of Charles V. stone was altogether replaced by wood and lead, even in the burials of the rich. The coffins of that epoch resemble boxes made in a great hurry by joining together sheets of lead of various thicknesses. [Illustration: Fig. 354.--Raised Stone, near Poitiers.--After a Plate in the great work of Count de Laborde, “Les Monuments de la France:” in folio, 1816.]