The square in front of Notre Dame looks like a place for sightseeing and selfies, not the surface of one of Europe's most remarkable archaeological sites.
But about a dozen feet below the cathedral plaza, archaeologists are uncovering parts of Paris that date back around 2,000 years.
French media have been calling the site the "dig of the century."
What's happening?
As detailed by CBS News and Ancient Origins, the excavation was set in motion by two recent developments: the 2019 blaze that destroyed Notre Dame's medieval spire and the city's later plan to redesign the open forecourt. Under French law, the ground had to be examined by archaeologists before that work could proceed.
Among the hundreds of discoveries are medieval pottery fragments marked with faint red traces that specialists still cannot read. Another find, a fourth-century coin of Emperor Constantine, initially looked like a dark, damaged disc until X-ray imaging revealed the ruler's profile.
Layer by layer, the site includes a Roman neighborhood from the fourth and fifth centuries, Merovingian and Carolingian storage pits above it, and the cellars of medieval houses closer to the surface, according to Ancient Origins.
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Why does this discovery matter?
Rather than turning up a few disconnected ruins, the excavation is revealing how Paris functioned throughout the ages, with neighborhoods, storage spaces, and places for waste disposal. Together, these archaeological layers offer an unusual view of a city built over the communities that came before it.
Some of the best-preserved objects came from deep pits that served as both trash dumps and toilets. The organic material inside acted as a cushion, helping jugs and cups remain intact and giving archaeologists evidence of how ordinary people lived, stored food, used household goods, and moved through the city long before modern Paris took shape.
With the forecourt work expected to be mostly finished by 2028, future visitors may end up walking across a plaza shaped by discoveries from every major era of the city's history.
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