Archaeologists say they have solved the mystery of a lead coffin discovered beneath Notre-Dame

When excavations at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in early 2022 unearthed a pair of lead coffins hidden beneath the church’s nave, archaeologists immediately recognized the sarcophagi’s significance. Lead, a metal that seals out moisture and prevents decomposition, has long been the coffin material of choice for the elite. line the box of England’s Elizabeth II.

Because the two people buried at Notre-Dame were buried in such expensive sarcophagi, they must have been high-status members of French society, experts concluded. But who were they? And how did they get here?

The team answered some questions surrounding the mysterious burials in December 2022. Using an inscription on one of the coffins, researchers identified the resident as Antoine de la Portea high priest who died in 1710 at the age of 83.

But they knew very little about the other person, a man in his 30s whom they called “the Horseman” – an allusion to a skeletal deformity that indicated he spent much of his time riding. Now, after nearly two years of research, scientists have proposed a likely candidate for the skeleton’s true identity: Joachim du Bellaya prominent French Renaissance poet who died in 1560.

A number of compelling clues led investigators to link the rider to du Bellay. The poet’s equestrian abilities are well documented: he “once rode from Paris to Rome, which is no mean feat when you have tuberculosis like him,” he said. Eric Crubezya biological anthropologist at the University of Toulouse III, at a September 17 press conference, per Euro news‘David Mouriquand. “He almost died from it.”

Du Bellay suffered from ill health throughout his life; The rider’s skeleton, meanwhile, showed signs of chronic meningitis caused by tuberculosis of the bone, both of which were rare diseases at the time.

“He meets all the criteria of the portrait,” Crubézy told reporters, per La Croix International‘s Cécile Jaures. “He is an experienced rider; suffers from both conditions mentioned in some of his poems, as in ‘The complaint of the desperate‘, where he describes ‘this storm that is fading [his] mind’; and his family belonged to the royal court and the Pope’s inner circle.”

Official documents state that Du Bellay was referred to as the nephew of a French cardinal Jean du Bellaywas buried in the Saint-Crépin Chapel of Notre-Dame after his death at about the age of 37. But excavations in 1758 failed to uncover the poet’s bones, which should have been buried in the chapel with his uncle.

According to one statement of the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP), scholars suspect that Du Bellay’s remains were moved to the crossing of the transept of Notre-Dame at a later date, perhaps in 1569, after the publication of his complete works, or in a conversion that had temporarily should be. As Charles Bremner reports for London Timesthe site where the sarcophagus was found was “previously occupied by another coffin” in a part of the cathedral usually reserved for high ecclesiastical dignitaries.

Not everyone is convinced that the skeleton belonged to du Bellay. At the press conference, Christophe Besnier, an INRAP archaeologist and excavation leader, pointed out that isotope analysis of the rider’s teeth indicates he grew up in the Paris and Lyon regions. Du Bellay was born in Anjou. In response, Crubézy argued that du Bellay was raised by his uncle, who was once Bishop of Paris, and therefore spent much of his time in the French capital.

INRAP president Dominique Garcia thinks the existing evidence is compelling. “What more can we have?” he asks Le Monde‘s Nathaniel Herzberg. “Find [du Bellay’s] toothbrush to check if the DNA matches? His age and pathology alone provide remarkable statistical reliability.”

Archaeologists unearthed the lead coffins during excavations at Notre-Dame in the aftermath of a devastating fire in 2019. In addition to identifying the two sets of remains, researchers have found more than 1,000 fragments of the cathedral’s cathedral. red screenan architectural element that separated the choir from the nave. This piecessome of which still bear traces of their original colored paint, will be used to restore the medieval structure. Notre Dame does scheduled to reopen on December 8, more than five years after the inferno destroyed the wooden spire and roof.