More than 60 years ago, the city of Paris came up with a plan to dig a parking lot next to its most famous cathedral. The excavation took longer than expected, uncovering nearly two thousand years of the city’s history, stacked up layer by layer. Indeed the remains are still there, beneath the pavement, and millions of visitors cross the square in front of Notre-Dame every year without knowing what lies beneath.
What is here is the archaeological crypt of the Ile de la City, a museum built around the ruins of what Paris was preparing to build a car park in the early 1960s.
what happened According to the French Ministry of Culture, excavations began in 1965, just before the construction of an underground parking lot under the square. And it lasted until the early 70s.
During the work, many structures and materials from the Roman period were found. The ministry itself lists a system of Gallo-Roman docks, rooms with hypocausts (underfloor heating) and a section of wall dating to the late Roman period.
The Paris Museum also says that public baths have been found and above these levels are wells, house basements and even the foundations of the 18th-century Hospice des Enfants-Trouvés (the central institution where newborns and abandoned children were taken in Ancien Régime France). In addition, the old Rue Neuve Notre-Dame street was also discovered, a medieval street that passed in front of the cathedral, according to AFAV research.
Who saved him? Michel Fleury, vice president of the Old Paris Commission and director of historical antiquities for the Ile-de-France region, commissioned the crypt, according to the Ministry of Culture. Archeology magazine reports that when the parking lot was proposed in the early 1960s, Fleury changed plans to make room for an underground archaeological exhibit.
The crypt was completed in 1974 and opened to the public in 1980. The parking lot was also built and still is.
A cathedral on top of the wall. According to the Ministry of Culture, Bishop Maurice de Sully laid the foundation stone of Notre-Dame in 1163. The wall is very old, dating back to the early 300s, so it stood for about 850 years before the construction of the cathedral began.
the fire. The Notre-Dame fire closed the crypt in April 2019, but it reopened a year and a half later, on September 9, 2020, with a tribute to the cathedral’s history. The door is easy to miss as it’s pretty obscure and the stairs don’t help either.
What comes next? Notre-Dame Square is being renovated and is expected to be completed by 2028. The former car park will now be converted into a visitor reception area with new access to the crypt and excavation work has already begun. Authorities have ordered a preventive excavation, 30 meters long and 4 meters deep and expected to last about eight months.
Cover image Wikipedia
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