During the winter of 2023-2024, a team of archaeologists conducted an excavation in the basement of a house in the Montconseil neighborhood of Corbeil-Essonnes (Île-de-France). This operation was prescribed by the Regional Archaeology Service and was carried out after the accidental discovery of a skeleton while the homeowner was doing renovation work in his basement. The four rooms of the basement were excavated, covering an area of 52 m².
This homeowner is not the first in the neighborhood to make a macabre discovery. The presence of an early Middle Ages cemetery in this area has been known for a long time. Several plaster sarcophagi, typical of this period, have been discovered since the 19th century.
Scholars at the time assumed that these burials were linked to the Notre-Dame-des-Champs chapel, which was thought to have been built in the 7th century over a pagan temple that honored a spring. However, no trace of these structures remains, and the graves in this cemetery had not been the subject of scientific study until now.

The excavation uncovered 38 graves distributed across the four rooms of the basement. Despite several rocky outcrops, the graves were arranged in parallel rows, which persisted throughout the seven centuries of the cemetery’s use, between the 3rd and 10th centuries AD. They shifted slightly to the east between the end of Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages.
This cemetery is older than the 19th-century scholars had supposed. The first burials date from the end of Antiquity, proving the area’s funerary purpose long before the chapel was built. During the Late Roman Empire, the deceased were buried lying on their backs in wooden structures placed in deep pits.
At the beginning of the Middle Ages, funerary practices evolved. The deceased were now buried in plaster sarcophagi. This practice was widespread in Île-de-France, with some sarcophagi even decorated on their exterior walls. In Corbeil, ten sarcophagi were discovered.

None were decorated, and each contained a single body, though it’s common to find several bodies. The sarcophagi were arranged side by side in a “fan” shape.
One of the sarcophagi was topped with a block of soft stone, carved and sculpted. This block is incomplete, making it difficult to reconstruct its original form. However, part of a rosette can be distinguished, while the opposite side features a Latin cross and a cross inscribed in a circle.
These motifs are commonly found on plaster sarcophagi and evoke the funerary realm, but they also resemble decorations that might appear on the façades of Christian places of worship.

The skeletons will be analyzed in a lab. Specialists will determine the sex of the individuals, their age at death, and their living conditions. The position of the bones and the objects in the graves will be studied to understand the burial practices: How was the grave constructed? How was the deceased placed in the pit? Were there any reopenings?
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