Basement renovation in home near Paris unearths cemetery spanning 700 years, with Roman-era graves

An archaeologist uses a small tool to excavate the dirt around a skeleton — The ancient graves were found in the basement of a house in a southern suburb of Paris that is thought to have been built on the site of a medieval chapel. (Image credit: Archeodunum)

During a basement renovation project, a homeowner near Paris unexpectedly unearthed a skeleton. The discovery eventually led to the excavation of a cemetery where dozens of people were buried, some of them up to 1,700 years ago.

The oldest grave dates from the third century A.D., during the Late Roman period; and 10 plaster sarcophagi date from the early Merovingian period of Frankish rule, which lasted from roughly 476 to 750.

Archaeologists originally thought the site was an early medieval graveyard because a seventh-century chapel had once stood in the area. So the existence of even older graves was unexpected, according to a translated statement from the French archaeology company Archaeodunum, which is carrying out the excavations on behalf of regional authorities.

The homeowner found the first grave this past winter, and archaeologists have now unearthed 38 graves there in a four-room area covering 560 square feet (52 square meters).

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A woman excavates a grave — The first skeleton was found in the basement of the house by the homeowner during renovations several months ago.(Image credit: Archeodunum)

Medieval chapel

The house in the Montconseil district of Corbeil-Essonnes, a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, is thought to have been built at the site of the medieval Notre-Dame-des-Champs chapel, which in turn is said to have been built above an even older pagan temple honoring a spring.

Early medieval graves have been found nearby before this, but no trace of the chapel or temple has been discovered. This is the first time that the chapel's cemetery has been studied, according to the statement.

Although the basement site included several outcrops of rock, most of the graves were arranged in parallel rows. The dead from the Roman period had been buried on their backs in wooden enclosures that have since rotted away. But the 10 dead people in the Merovingian graves were buried in distinctive plaster sarcophagi, arranged side by side in a fan-shape, the statement said.

One sarcophagus was originally covered by a shaped stone block, now in pieces, that seems to have had a rosette and two crosses carved into its surface. The archaeologists said such motifs were common on Merovingian sarcophagi, as well as outside places of Christian worship at this time.

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A schematic of the burial site — Archaeologists have now found the graves of 38 people in the four-room basement. Other burials had previously been found nearby.(Image credit: Archeodunum)

Ancient burials

Merovingian sarcophagi from other sites are sometimes decorated and often contain the remains of several people. But most of the sarcophagi at Corbeil were undecorated and each held only the remains of a single person, the statements said.

The age of the oldest graves indicate that people were buried at the site long before the medieval chapel was built there.