As Paris reshapes the square outside Notre Dame for hotter summers, archaeologists are digging beneath the cathedral and finding proof of Roman Lutetia—along with a fourth-century coin stamped with Emperor Constantine’s face—and pottery marked with faint reddi
In the summer sun, tourists wait for the next turn to climb into Notre Dame and meet its gargoyles. Just meters away, the atmosphere is different. A team of archaeologists is digging down—straight down and back in time—where the ground cannot simply be turned over until every layer below is accounted for.
Fire brought Notre Dame’s spire crashing down in 2019. The cathedral was rebuilt and reopened in late 2024. and Paris now wants to soften the hot. bare square in front of it with trees and shade. But in a city this old. the soil won’t be moved until what lies beneath it is excavated. in case future works damage buried remains.
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, close to the line of visitors.
France’s media have dubbed it the “dig of the century.” Lucie Altenburg, a conservator with the Paris archaeology unit, called it “a rare opportunity for us to work on something that’s tangibly going to make a difference to the history of Paris.”
Notre Dame excavation Paris archaeology Constantine coin Roman Lutetia Merovingian grain pits Carolingian medieval pottery inscriptions Ile de la Cite
Constantine coin found at Notre Dame? Paris really can’t stop digging stuff up.
So they’re putting trees in the square but also digging like crazy underneath, right? Seems like they should’ve just moved the whole thing after that 2019 fire, but whatever. I just hope the tourists don’t step on a Roman layer or something.
Wait did the fire in 2019 cause all those Roman layers to be revealed or was that already there? Constantine on a coin sounds fake but people keep saying it’s real. Also “reddi”?? is that like the word they found for pizza toppings or what lol.
Dig of the century but it’s literally right next to the cathedral tourists are queueing for. They talk about hot summers and shade like it’s a new thing, but it’s France, it’s always hot. Seems like they could’ve just turned the dirt over after they rebuilt in 2024—unless they’re hiding something in the ground besides that coin. Constantine face coin and pottery marks, cool, but I’m stuck on why they can’t just “move” soil like normal construction.