Ancient cemetery found under one of the houses in Paris (7 photos)

An ancient cemetery dating back 700 years was discovered during renovation work in a home near Paris. The graves date back to the Roman era.





The homeowner, while renovating his basement, stumbled upon a skeleton. This discovery set off a fascinating process that has led to the discovery of nearly 40 burials, some dating back to the Roman era.



Ancient burials have been found in the basement of a home in the southern suburbs of Paris, believed to have been built on the site of a medieval chapel.

While renovating the basement, a homeowner outside Paris unexpectedly discovered a skeleton. The discovery has sparked a major excavation of the cemetery, where dozens of people were buried, some more than 1,700 years ago.

The oldest tomb dates back to the third century AD, to the late Roman period. However, the 10 plaster sarcophagi were created during the early Merovingian period of Frankish rule, which lasted from about 476 to 750. The most recent grave dates back to around the 10th century, indicating that the cemetery had been in use for about 700 years.

Archaeologists initially assumed the site was an early medieval cemetery because a seventh-century chapel once stood on the site. So the discovery of older burials came as a complete surprise, according to a statement from the French archaeological company Archaeodunum, which is carrying out the excavations on behalf of the regional government.

The owner of the house discovered the first grave last winter, and archaeologists have now unearthed 38 burials in a four-room, 52-square-metre space.





The first skeleton was found in the basement of the house by the owner during renovations several months ago.



Archaeologists discovered 38 skeletons in the basement, dating from the 3rd to 10th centuries.



Many of the graves date back to the Merovingian period, from the fifth to the eighth century. During this time, the dead were placed in plaster sarcophagi.

The house, located in the southern suburbs of Paris, in the Monconcelle district of Corbeil-Essonnes, is believed to have been built on the site of the medieval chapel of Notre-Dame-des-Champs. This chapel, in turn, was built on the ruins of an older pagan temple dedicated to a spring.

Early medieval graves have been discovered here before, but no traces of the chapel or temple itself have been found. Although there were several rock outcrops where the basement was, most of the graves were laid out parallel to each other. In Roman times, the dead were buried on their backs in wooden coffins, which unfortunately have rotted over the centuries.

However, the statement said, the 10 people buried in the Merovingian graves were buried in distinctive plaster sarcophagi arranged next to each other in a fan shape. One of the sarcophagi was originally covered by a figured stone block, which has now been broken into pieces. Its surface appears to have been carved with a rosette and two crosses. Such motifs were common on Merovingian sarcophagi and were found even outside Christian places of worship at the time, the archaeologists said.



In a four-room basement, archaeologists discovered the graves of 38 people. Other burials were previously discovered nearby.



One of the Merovingian sarcophagi was covered by a stone block, which has now fallen apart. It is carved with an emblem in the form of a rosette and two types of crosses.

Merovingian sarcophagi found elsewhere are sometimes decorated and often contain the remains of several people. However, the statements noted that most of the sarcophagi at Corbeil were undecorated and contained the remains of only one person. The age of the oldest graves suggests that people were buried at the site long before the medieval chapel was built.

The skeletons will now be examined in the lab. Archaeologists are aiming to determine the sex and age of the deceased, as well as any clues to their living conditions, such as their health at death and their general diet. They hope that studying the burial will give them a better understanding of the population that lived in the area during late antiquity and the Middle Ages, and how burial customs changed over time.