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The excavation of a gothic French abbey has revealed more than 1,000 entombment , including those of pest victims , in its memorial park as well as the clay of a most 1,200 - yr - honest-to-goodness settlement underneath the construction .
The dig at Beaumont Abbey bring out almost eight centuries of consumption before the issue of theFrench Revolutionshut it down . This is the first time a European abbey has been fully excavated , producing new information about the evolution of the Catholic convent .
Excavation of the servants' cemetery at Beaumont Abbey.
site outside of Tours in the Loire Valley of France , roughly 110 mi ( 178 klick ) southwest of Paris , Beaumont Abbey was institute in 1002 on a site that had already been occupied by the hamlet of Belmons since at least 845 . historic records show that the abbey grow quickly , becoming the big community of nun in the province .
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But in 1789 , in the midst of the French Revolution , in which Louis XVI and Marie Antoinetteultimately lost their heads , the abbey and its earth were prehend by the body politic and the 46 nuns stay at Beaumont were expelled . The church and associated building were eventually torn down in the early 19th century .
Sarcophagi unearthed in the chapter house.
archaeologic excavation get at Beaumont Abbey in September 2022 , leave byPhilippe Blanchardof the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research ( Inrap ) , and it was completed in December 2023 .
" As it is a unique corps de ballet , " Blanchard said in atranslated statementpublished on Feb. 16 , " we have turn up as many elements of this abbey as potential : the entire church , the entire religious residence , all the peripheral building , all the facility , the abbey habitation , the refectory , the kitchen , the sinks , the living-room , the basement , the dovecote , the ovens , cistern , pipes , washhouse , latrines , icebox , dumps " and more than 1,000 burials from different metre periods . The team also establish strong-arm grounds of the small town of Belmons .
This work has so far shown that the abbey Christian church underwent at least two major structural changes prior to being tear down .
Pottery in a pit that housed a grave.
The first incarnation was small with a insipid apse — a semicircular structure with a semi - dome roof — which doubled in sizing around the 11th or twelfth hundred . Another C or two after , the church grew with the addition of an ambulatory , mean aisles along the nave , or central part of the church building that view as the congregation .
But smaller - scale renovation were also happen over the eight centuries the abbey was in use . " They add rooms , redo tile , add gutter ; they are incessantly transfer , " Blanchard said .
Like the abbey , the cemetery at Beaumont also grow over sentence and was used by several groups , include the nuns themselves and the handmaid who work at the abbey . Analysis of the regain skeletons has only just begun , but Blanchard hopes to determine where the people came from , what they eat , and what the province of their health was .
Unearthing the foundation stone that mentions Madame de Bourbon-Condé.
" We know that a plague epidemic occurred in 1563 , " he said , " and that in the same hebdomad , nine nun — two of them on the same mean solar day — die and were bury in the same grave . "
There may also be richly - rank church members among the tombs , as texts refer an abbess ’s tomb bury with a 12 pots , Blanchard said . The abbess in question may be Madame de Bourbon - Condé , a granddaughter of Louis XIV . She became a nun buoy around 1720 and the prioress of Beaumont in 1732 , and she died in 1772 . The abbess probably lived a relatively comfortable life , with her own home and servant who run it . An 18th - hundred porcelain tea service disclose during the shaft suggest the nuns import okay ceramics fromChina , likely at great expense .
While Madame de Bourbon - Condé ’s burial vault has probably been discovered , as there is only one such burial vault in the church building , Blanchard said that only a few bones and ceramic were present and the headstone was recovered elsewhere at the website .
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" This tomb , necessarily very visible , is [ we must imagine ] one of the first which was spread out during the Revolution , " Blanchard said . At the clip , leash was scarce , and entombment burial vault were opened so that lead coffin could be used to make so - call patriot bullets for the Revolutionary Armies .
The archeological digging has now been completely filled in , allowing new development to go forrad , consort to Blanchard . After 14 months of work in the field , " the great scientific and human risky venture now keep on with the laboratory study of the data collect , " Blanchard wrote on his websiteChroniques de Beaumont .
