Louvre Archives - Page 4 of 6 - Stew Ross Discovers

Bubonic plague victims in mass grave. Photo (2011) by S. Tzortzis. Wikimedia Commons.

You all know me by now. I couldn’t pass up this one.

On the corner of Rue Réaumur and Boulevard de Sébastopol in the second district of Paris stands a Monoprix supermarket. In January 2015, archaeologists discovered the building sits on top of a medieval cemetery.

Rows after rows of complete human skeletons (316 in total) were found buried in a mass grave. It turns out this was near the site of a medieval hospital called Hôpital de la Trinité. The occupants of this grave ranged from babies to the elderly (remember, in medieval times, elderly was often no greater than 40-years of age). Hospitals during the Middle Ages were not like the ones we know (i.e., places to cure the sick). They were primarily places where the poor could get food and a place to sleep.

Medieval burials in Paris were done in large pits. Once the pit was filled, it was covered up and a new pit was dug. During this excavation, they found 8 separate pits. The main pit contained 175 occupants. The lead archaeologist, Ms. Isabelle Adadie, indicated there was no trauma to any of the skeletons thus leading to the question of how these individuals died. DNA testing will reveal a lot. If it is found that all the skeletons are from a narrow time frame around the mid-1300s, it could be the bubonic plague that took their lives.

As most of you know from my prior blog posts, all the cemeteries located within the city limits were closed down in the 1800s with the remains transferred to the Paris Catacombs. As the archaeological team points out, Paris has been continuously occupied, and as such, excavations are difficult. A great example of this was the excavation during the construction of I.M. Pei’s pyramid at the Louvre. They discovered the foundations of the great royal palace and sections of the wall built by King Charles V.

One of the city’s archaeologists points out that over the centuries, Paris was continuously flooded. As they rebuilt, the soil was compacted and the level of the city slowly rose. Just think of what still lies below the surface on the Île de la Cité and other parts of Paris.

The archaeologists were very excited to find skeletons and not your average run of the mill ancient building. I guess it’s sort of like finding the remains of the English King Richard III buried under a church parking lot or the remains of the naughty nuns from an old English nunnery.

Anyway, stay tuned, as more information becomes known about these folks.

Please visit the complete NY Times article A Grisly Find Under a Supermarket Illuminates France’s Medieval History.

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After years of planning I was about to go on a trip. The night before the foray, I was surprised when a business colleague asked to hold on to my passport in case I landed in the wrong place.

Strange, I thought, since I was only going to Florida.

This jaunt would be different: I was going into orbit on the Space Shuttle Discovery.

If it turned out that our rocket had engine problems during launch, then there was the possibility that we would have to swoop into one of the emergency landing sites in Africa. Someone from NASA would have to come to our rescue, bringing our passports and immunization records so we could get home…if we even survived.

Journeys into space were unlike any other.

Of course, they were “business” trips with many tasks to accomplish, but they did afford some time for “sightseeing”. Looking at Earth from 250 miles above while speeding along at 17,000 miles per hour provided a completely different perspective on our world. We had the chance to view Earth on a vast scale.

Vestiges of history would drift below us. The sheltered bays of the east coast of the United States were reminders of where the early explorers found safe harbor from which to start their exploration of the New World. And out my window one morning? Bible stories galore! There was the land of the Pharaohs—Egypt and the Nile, then the desert of Moses’s wanderings on the Sinai Peninsula, and to the east was Israel, the Promised Land.

Some of the wondrous vistas we see from ground level are unimpressive when seen from out in space. The mighty Grand Canyon is only a long crack in the landscape. Mount Everest is indistinguishable from all the surrounding snow-capped mountains.

Sometimes events converged perfectly to capture unique photos. The location had to be in daylight and the sky cloudless. The Shuttle had to pass directly over the area of interest. The photographer had to be ready with the right camera and lens in hand as the target whizzed by. My husband and fellow astronaut, Robert “Hoot” Gibson, had such fortuitous moment on his fourth mission. He captured for the first time a picture of Paris, the City of Lights, from space.

On this grand scale the Ile de la Cité is an island in the winding Seine River. On the shore to the right are lined up the Louvre, the Tuileries Gardens, and the Champs Elysees leading to the starburst of roads around Arc de Triomphe. The iconic Eiffel Tower is too dark and pointy to be seen. The great forest to the west is the Bois de Boulogne.

My friend Stew Ross knows all these Parisian sites and their role in history on a smaller and more intimate scale. I’m hoping he will show me this city from ground level someday!

–Rhea Seddon

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Tag: Louvre

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