Archaeologists Followed a Forgotten Staircase—and Uncovered a 400-Year-Old Burial Vault

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• Restoration efforts at the Church of Saint Philibert in France led to the discovery of a forgotten staircase and a 400-year-old burial vault.

• The archaeological finds didn’t stop there, with experts locating sarcophagi from the sixth century.

• The current 12^th century church was built over an array of older churches and buildings.

An excursion down a forgotten staircase in a 12^th century French church resulted not only in a lost burial vault, but in a trip back in time to the sixth century.

The discovery was part of a restoration project at the Church of Saint Philibert in Dijon, France, which was necessary because of an ill-advised decision made in the 1970s. The installation of a heated concrete slab trapped the salt-filled ground under it—the 800-year-old church was used for salt storage in the 18^th and 19^th centuries—and when heated, the salt caused cracking and damage to the stone church’s foundation.

As crews came to investigate and dig into the foundation of the church, they dug into the foundation in a variety of locations, and the restoration quickly morphed into a full archaeological search, which resulted in the discovery of a vault hidden in the church’s transept that held the coffins of children and adults, according to a translated statement from the French National Institute for Preventative Archaeological Research (Inrap). The burials featured basic shroud wrappings, with a few ancient coins and rosaries alongside the remains.

But that wasn’t all.

The archaeological team—led by Clarisse Couderc and Carole Fossurier—also discovered slab tombs from the 11^th through 13^th centuries, and even six sarcophagi from the Late Antiquity and Merovingian periods.

While the current Church of Saint Philibert was founded in the second half of the 12^th century—additions since have included a porch, bell tower, spire, and side chapel—the archaeological team located additional evidence of an earlier church on the site, which had actually first been discovered during 1923 excavations. Deeper still, they found remnants of walls from the Early Middle Ages, which had been built using herringbone masonry techniques that the team believes dates it to the 10^th century.

The sarcophagi were even older, though, and one of the six coffins featuring a sculpted lid. The Inrap experts believe the finding of burials from so many eras shows that the church was an important funerary center during the switch from the Roman era to the Early Middle Ages (the sarcophagi were likely inside another ancient building when first buried).

Who knows what else remains to be discovered?

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