Posted on 06/19/2026 5:44:48 PM PDT by Red Badger
Bits of the history of Paris are emerging from the ground beneath Notre Dame cathedral, along with pieces of a medieval mystery.
The project began when Notre Dame was struck by fire in 2019, and French media are calling it the “dig of the century.”
“It’s a rare opportunity for us to work on something that’s tangibly going to make a difference to the history of Paris,” Lucie Altenburg, a conservator with the Paris archaeology unit, said, per the Associated Press.
A 1,700-year-old Roman coin stamped with the face of Emperor Constantine has been found, as have fragments of medieval pottery with marks no one has yet interpreted.
“It makes Notre Dame feel alive again,” Emily Carter, 34, a tourist from Manchester, said. “You come to see the cathedral, then realize there’s another city under your feet. That’s almost more moving.”
The dig has gone down about 13 feet. It reached cellars of the houses that surrounded the cathedral when it was built in 1163, and further down into the past.
“Here you can see the layers -- medieval Paris, Roman Paris, maybe even before that,” Yasmine Benali, 22, an archaeology student, said.
“It makes the city feel less like a postcard and more like something still being discovered.”
Medieval latrines, which doubled as garbage dumps, have yielded broken pottery as well as whole items.
It is “rare to find complete ceramics,” Valentine Breloux, an archaeologist with the unit, said.
Multiple bits of pottery have the same faint reddish writing painted on the inside, but no one knows what the markings mean.
Breloux called the mysterious shards “astonishing.”
Objects such as the Roman coin “can be invaluable in giving us the date of the (underground) layer,” Altenburg said.
“The hope is that we are able to go back in time even further than we’ve ever been before,” Altenburg said, according to Fox News.
Hugo Cador, an archaeologist and manager of the excavation site, said items being found have a value far beyond the materials that went into making them.
“They aren’t treasures, like gold ingots, but each item has great scientific value,” Cador said, according to Discover.
“When we come across complete objects, like this medieval pitcher or this candlestick unearthed from the old latrines that were then used as a dump. This type of artifact allows us to reconstruct daily life at the time and to characterize the different uses of the place: elite residences, simple houses, places of worship, shops,” Cador added.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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PinGGG!...............
Medieval latrines, which doubled as garbage dumps, have yielded broken pottery as well as whole items.
Maybe ossuary, cremains, or some offering.
Too much writing for "Kilroy was here".
It says:
DO NOT DRINK YOUR OVALTINE OUT OF THIS POT!..............
Dilemma—should Dan Brown (The DaVinci Code) or the Ancient Aliens staff be assigned to decipher the mysterious marks?
That spontaneous fire that had nothing to do with the Islamic invasion. /s
Great read.
[It is “rare to find complete ceramics,” Valentine Breloux, an archaeologist with the unit, said.]
Yes, especially with the weight of an entire Cathedral on top of them. Good work.
Ha.
So far: The translated binary code includes phrases like “Exploration of Humanity, Continuous for Planetary Advance, Eyes of Your Eyes, Origin Year 8100.”
——From the true memoir by one of the officers coming upon an alleged space vehicle in Britain’s Rendlesham Forest and seeing glyphs written on it. He suddenly had code in his mind and wrote it down, line after line despite not being a tech guy himself.
The code contains various geographical coordinates, with one prominent coordinate pointing to the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Ireland, near the mythical island of Hy-Brasil.
Other coordinates point to significant ancient sites such as the Giza plateau.
Critics say the code contains errors and also using our GPS system to explain it to us would be inefficient and shows it’s a hoax.
Professor Langston….Symbiologist.
I noticed that ridiculous sentence, too. “Struck by fire.” Like it’s some kind of mystery. (Eye roll)
Sounds kinky but it was his role.
Thanks!
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