Archaeologists Say They’ve Solved the Mystery of a Lead Coffin Discovered Beneath Notre-Dame
New research suggests the sarcophagus’ occupant, previously known only as “the horseman,” is Joachim du Bellay, a French Renaissance poet who died in 1560.
When excavations at Paris’ Notre-Dame Cathedral unearthed a pair of lead coffins hidden beneath the church’s nave in early 2022, archaeologists immediately recognized the sarcophagi’s significance. Lead, a metal that keeps out moisture and prevents decomposition, has long been the chosen coffin material of the elite, used even to line the casket of England’s Elizabeth II.
Because the two individuals buried at Notre-Dame were laid to rest in such expensive sarcophagi, they must have been high-status members of French society, experts concluded. But who were they? And how did they end up here?
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