Archaeologists Say They’ve Solved the Mystery of a Lead Coffin Discovered Beneath Notre-Dame

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?

The team answered some of the questions surrounding the mysterious burials in December 2022. Using an inscription on one of the coffins, researchers identified its occupant as Antoine de la Porte, a high priest who died in 1710 at age 83.

But they knew very little about the other individual, a man in his 30s whom they nicknamed “the horseman”—an allusion to a skeletal deformity that suggested he spent much of his time riding. Now, after nearly two years of research, scholars have proposed a likely candidate for the skeleton’s true identity: Joachim du Bellay, a prominent French Renaissance poet who died in 1560.

Several compelling clues led the researchers to link the horseman to du Bellay. The poet’s equestrian abilities are well documented: He once “rode from Paris to Rome, which is no mean feat when you have tuberculosis like he did,” said Eric Crubézy, a biological anthropologist at France’s University of Toulouse III, at a September 17 press conference, per Euronews’ David Mouriquand. “In fact, he almost died from it.”

Du Bellay suffered from poor health throughout his life; the horseman’s skeleton, meanwhile, showed signs of chronic meningitis caused by bone tuberculosis, both of which were rare diseases at the time.

“He matches all the criteria of the portrait,” Crubézy told reporters, per La Croix International’s Cécile Jaurès. “He is an accomplished horseman; suffers from both conditions mentioned in some of his poems, like in ‘The Complaint of the Despairing,’ where he describes ‘this storm that blurs [his] mind’; and his family belonged to the royal court and the pope’s close entourage.”

Official records state that du Bellay, the relative of a French cardinal named Jean du Bellay, was interred in Notre-Dame’s Saint-Crépin chapel following his death at about age 37. But excavations conducted in 1758 failed to uncover the poet’s bones, which were supposed to be buried near his relative’s in the chapel.

According to a statement from the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP), scholars suspect that du Bellay’s remains were moved to the crossing of the transept at Notre-Dame at a later date, perhaps in 1569, after the publication of his complete works, or in a switch that was supposed to be temporary. As Charles Bremner reports for the London Times, the site where the sarcophagus was found was “previously occupied by another coffin” in an area of the cathedral that was typically reserved for high church dignitaries.

Not everyone is convinced that the skeleton belonged to du Bellay. At the press conference, Christophe Besnier, an INRAP archaeologist and dig leader, pointed out that isotope analysis of the horseman’s teeth indicates he grew up in the Paris or Lyon regions. Du Bellay was born in Anjou. In response, Crubézy argued that du Bellay was raised by his older relative Jean du Bellay, who once served as the bishop of Paris, and therefore spent much of his time in the French capital.

Avancées des recherches à Notre-Dame de Paris

Les découvertes archéologiques renouvellent considérablement les connaissances sur Notre-Dame et sur l’histoire de l’île de la Cité. Elles documentent de manière ininterrompue 2000 ans d’histoire https://t.co/09NenSqG15 pic.twitter.com/wOfvrIjsG9

— Inrap (@Inrap) September 17, 2024

INRAP’s president, Dominique Garcia, thinks the existing evidence is persuasive. “What more can we have?” he asks Le Monde’s Nathaniel Herzberg. “Find [du Bellay’s] toothbrush to check that the DNA matches? His age and pathology alone offer remarkable statistical solidity.”

Archaeologists unearthed the lead coffins while conducting excavations at Notre-Dame in the aftermath of a devastating 2019 fire. In addition to identifying the two sets of remains, researchers have found more than 1,000 fragments of the cathedral’s rood screen, an architectural element that separated the choir from the nave. These pieces, some of which still bear traces of their original colored paint, will be used to restore the medieval-era structure. Notre-Dame is slated to reopen on December 8, more than five years after the inferno ravaged its wooden spire and roof.

Meilan Solly | | READ MORE

Meilan Solly is Smithsonian magazine's senior associate digital editor, history.