2,000 years of history surface at Notre Dame

Archaeologists dig up traces of past empire as Paris remodels part of site to reduce heat.

- NICOLAS GARRIGA

NICOLAS GARRIGA Associated Press ARCHAEOLOGIST Lucie Altenburg shows artifacts uncovered during excavations outside Notre Dame.

Wilting in the summer sun, a line of tourists waits to climb Notre Dame cathedral and meet its gargoyles.

Thirteen feet beneath them, a team of archaeologists is digging the other way -straight down and back in time, to Roman Paris 2,000 years ago.

In 2019, fire brought Notre Dame's spire crashing down as the world watched. The cathedral was rebuilt and reopened in late 2024, and now Paris wants to soften the hot, bare square in front of it with trees and shade.

But in a city this old, the soil cannot be turned until what lies beneath it is excavated, in case it is damaged during works.

So a slice of Notre Dame's forecourt has become an excavation site an open pit ringed by barriers and crossed by a wooden walkway, a few steps from the line-up.

'Another city under your feet'

French media have dubbed 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, told the Associated Press.

Among the hundreds of objects found: a fourth-century coin stamped with the face of the Emperor Constantine, and shards of medieval pottery painted on the inside with marks no expert has yet deciphered.

"It makes Notre Dame feel alive again," said Emily Carter, 34, a tourist from Manchester waiting in line with her two children. "You come to see the cathedral, then realize there's another city under your feet. That's almost more moving."

The first traces appear 20 inches down; 13 feet lower, the team is still pulling up the past. Some days they fill 15 crates-from ground that has lain untouched for decades.

The reality of an ancient city