Just metres from a busy train station in the heart of Paris, scientists have uncovered 50 graves in an ancient necropolis which offer a rare glimpse of life in the French capital's precursor Lutetia nearly 2000 years ago. ManilaBulletin
Somehow the buried necropolis was never stumbled upon during multiple road works over the years, as well as the construction of the Port-Royal station on the historic Left Bank in the 1970s.Camille Colonna, an anthropologist at France's National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research , told a press conference that there were already "strong suspicions" the site was close to Lutetia's southern necropolis.
However, only objects considered precious were taken from the graves, with the many skeletons, burial offerings and other artifacts abandoned.The INRAP team discovered one section that had never before been excavated.Colonna said the team was also "very happy" to have found a skeleton with a coin in its mouth, allowing them to date the burial to the 2nd century AD.
Sometimes a coin was placed in the coffin, or even in the mouth of the dead, a common practice at the time called Charon's obol. The archaeologists also found shoes inside the graves, identifying them by the small nails that would be been in the soles.
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