Original subtitles

A devastating fire nearly destroys an iconic cathedral in

the heart of Paris.

But then, beneath the damaged floor, archaeologists make a

startling discovery.

It's exceptional, the life of an archaeologist.

Human-shaped sarcophagi, made of lead, centuries old.

I never, ever thought I would excavate in Notre Dame.

And, among the bodies, a thousand shattered fragments of a

once immense stone sculpture

dating from the Middle Ages.

It's like finding the Mona Lisa in several pieces.

A cloud of questions surrounds these subterranean secrets.

Whose bodies are these?

He is between 30 and 40 years old.

And what was the massive sculpture that was destroyed, and

then hidden, buried inside

the most famous cathedral on earth.

Wow, it's really impressive.

Can science and history solve the puzzle

and rediscover a lost age in the life of the iconic cathedral?

Lost Tombs of Notre Dame.

Paris, April 15, 2019.

a fire breaks out in Notre-Dame Cathedral.

It engulfs the roof,

bringing the iconic spire crashing to the ground.

Witnesses are in shock.

For over 800 years,

the cathedral has stood in the heart of Paris,

a sacred place, a witness to centuries of history.

Luckily, firefighters quenched the blaze in time

to save Notre-Dame from total collapse.

Yet, the extent of the damage is staggering.

When the spire collapsed, it crashed through the center of the

roof, landing at the intersection

of the nave and the transept, the very center of the

architectural cross that defines the

cathedral's layout.

Nobody wished for this fire, for this tragedy, but today we must

find the good side of it.

We have access to data that was inaccessible before.

The collapse leaves a huge hole in the heart of the building.

But it also sets the stage for surprising discoveries that

might shed new light on the

history of Notre Dame.

After the initial shock of the fire has passed, and structural

engineers have inspected and

unstabilized what remains.

Work on the monumental task of restoring the cathedral

begins, beginning with a massive

network of interlocking scaffolding on the

inside of the building.

But before they build on top of the transept crossing, they

need to see what's under

the floor to make sure it can take the weight.

The investigation is led by archaeologist Christophe Besnier.

It's exceptional in the life of an archaeologist, in the life

of a team of archaeologists.

There have been very few archaeological

interventions in Notre-Dame.

We're going to do some major work here, so we take great

responsibility for our discoveries,

their understanding and preservation.

It's going to be huge and exciting work for the team.

This excavation is expected to be brief, but a trove of

surprising discoveries will mean

otherwise.

As they clear away the floor, first they uncover a network of

brick tunnels dating back to

the 19th century.

In fact, it was the first underfloor heating system installed

in Notre-Dame in the 19th

century.

It was made of large brick ducts, sometimes on one level,

sometimes on two, which were

connected to a boiler located behind the apse of Notre-Dame.

The ductwork had been installed during an earlier renovation

in the 19th century, and

it doesn't require special handling.

But what archaeologists see next does.

Human remains, a sealed lead sarcophagus of unknown age.

Finding bodies is not completely unexpected.

Burials in and around the cathedral

are part of its history, but a sarcophagus like this one

is very rare and immediately begs the questions,

Whose remains are these, and why are they here?

Archaeologically, we can see that it's surrounded by fill

containing 14th-century ceramics,

so this could mean it was buried in the 14th century.

But he is buried in a lead coffin.

This was extremely rare in the 14th century,

but it's much more common from the late 15th, 16th century onwards.

And there's another surprise.

The coffin looks out of place.

Christophe has a possible explanation.

- The main hypothesis is that the coffin was moved.

They moved this coffin and buried it.

They put him in a vault that was not his.

- Not knowing where it was originally buried

may make it harder to determine the person's identity.

Multiple burials and renovations over the centuries make the

archaeologist's job much

more challenging.

But before they can solve that mystery, they spot another

coffin, amazingly intact and

protected in a hollow among the debris.

After clearing a path, they can see that this one has a

plaque and an epitaph.

Here lies the body of Monsieur Antoine de la Porte, canon of

the Church of Paris, died

December 24th, 1710, in his 83rd year.

According to the inscription, he is a canon, meaning he was part

of an elite group of priests

that helped manage the religious and administrative life of the cathedral.

They were often intellectuals.

They came from noble or military backgrounds.

Such was the case of Canon de la Porte, the canons.

When all gathered together, they formed the chapter of the cathedral.

The assembled canons took the big decisions.

Canons were a fixture in Catholic churches until the

end of the 18th century.

Antoine de la Porte is actually a well-known historical figure,

one of the most famous canons of Notre-Dame de Paris.

During the 17th century, he served for over 50 years in the cathedral.

At the Louvre Museum, a large painting even depicts him in action.

So, here is Canon de La Porte in all his splendor,

celebrating Mass at Notre Dame.

It was his coffin which was found during the recent archaeological digs.

Antoine de la Porte's coffin seems newer than the unmarked coffin.

Yet they are similar.

Could there be a link between them?

For now, it seems their best hope for more clues are sealed inside.

To avoid their destruction during renovation, it is decided

to temporarily exhume both.

For me, one of the most emotional moments of my life was

when the coffins were removed

from the site because these maneuvers were very complex from a

logistical point of view.

We were really afraid of damaging them, dropping them, or breaking them.

You have to carry something that weighs 660 pounds, leaving

it flat, so as not to move

what's inside.

It was a bit stressful.

They hope to open the coffins and study the remains, to

preserve what they can, and try

to discover the identity of the mystery body, all to gain a

better understanding of the

people and the history of this place.

Here at Rangueil Hospital in Toulouse, a team of anthropologists,

forensic doctors, and

radiologists will analyze the contents of the coffins.

Hello.

Canon Antoine de la Porte's sarcophagus, as well as that of the

John Doe, are first carefully

cleaned.

Professor Eric Crubezy, an anthropologist at the

University of Toulouse, examines the

two sarcophagi with archaeologist Christophe Besnier

before opening them.

A few teeth remain.

The canines are in place.

He's looking for any clue or detail on the surface of the coffins.

The enlargement for the buttocks here.

Have you ever seen this before or not?

I don't recall.

Unlike Antoine de la Porte's sarcophagus, this unknown

coffin has a unique hourglass shape.

These lead coffins were usually custom -made, lead being a

particularly soft and malleable metal.

It was the perfect material to make an airtight, human-shaped capsule.

It also explains why the top of the sarcophagus sagged.

Lead weakens and deforms more quickly than more sturdy metals.

Before opening the coffins, they put on respirator masks.

The excavation protocol they follow is very strict,

to safeguard them from lead poisoning as well as to avoid any

contamination of the remains.

Armed with an angle grinder, they start with Antoine

de la Porte's sarcophagus.

The bottom of the coffin is very badly eroded.

What will this mean for the condition of the remains inside?

- Everyone's got it, yes. - Okay, let's do this.

All right Camille? - Yeah, I have.

You can give it to me. It's okay.

It's okay, I've got it. All right, let go. Let go, boys.

If the coffin had remained completely sealed,

de la Porte's body would likely have been better preserved.

Next, the mystery sarcophagus.

It is a bit harder to open because its lead

walls are much thicker.

It is also less damaged, with fewer holes.

So archaeologists hope the body inside will be better preserved

than Antoine de la Porte.

The lid is also much heavier to lift up.

OK.

OK.

Hold on.

You can let it go now.

You can let it go now.

It's good.

It's sawed off.

- An immediate surprise for the archeologists.

John Doe's skull is sawed open.

- Oh, beautiful.

There's a leaf.

There's lots of them.

There's lots of leaves.

Oh wow, that's beautiful.

There are spikes of plants.

That's beautiful.

It's great.

This coffin is full of unexpected discoveries.

The body has been buried with plants.

But what kind?

And why?

And what possible reason had there been

to saw open the skull?

So many questions.

Over the next three days,

a dozen specialists take turns attending

to these two sets of remains.

Patiently, they collect hundreds of samples of plants and textiles

to be analyzed and interpreted.

Next, the anthropologists make their first observations of the two

bodies, starting with the cannon.

The skeleton clearly shows the signs of advanced age.

Antoine de la Porte died at age 83.

Normally a spinal disc is smooth and flat, but here you see lots of little

spikes, little bony spikes everywhere, so that's arthritis.

After a first round of sampling, the skeleton is methodically taken apart.

The scientists are amazed by the cannon's healthy dental condition.

Surprising for such an elderly person who lived at a time when

toothpaste didn't exist.

Look at this first molar, which is in place. It's very well preserved.

See it is polished. That's why I think he was cleaning his teeth.

Antoine de la Porte lived a long life and took care of his health as

a member of a prestigious elite which ran the affairs of Notre Dame

He had the right to be buried in the Cathedral, like many of his peers.

But how many people were buried in this special way, and why

did they choose this as a last resting place?

Almost 400 burials were documented in Notre Dame, not to mention

all those for which there

is no record in the archives.

At Notre Dame, we knew we were treading on a huge graveyard.

In cathedrals, it's mainly the clergy buried here,

along with bishops.

In Catholic faith, there's the idea that the living can

pray for the dead to reduce

time spent in purgatory, the time spent atoning, after death,

the harm caused during one's

life.

So it was very important to be close to this place of celebration.

From the Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century, bishops

and archbishops were buried

under the choir, the most sacred place in the cathedral.

Depending on their status, canons could find a last resting

place under the nave, in the

chapels around the choir, or the transept crossing.

This central location was especially prized by canons because

it is just in front of the choir.

The unknown body must have been someone important to

have been buried there.

Is he a canon also?

His remains will be the subject of a much more detailed analysis.

Anthropologists and forensic doctors will try to make this

skeleton speak, to find clues

that might help identify him, or at least get close.

The age indicator is this surface here, as well as this surface.

And here, look, they look almost immature, so the subject

at first estimate might be

between 30 and 40 years old, perhaps closer to the first

value than the second.

This age is surprising.

Most of the cannons buried inside the cathedral died in an old age.

After removing the entire skeleton, a new

round of sampling begins.

John Doe's sarcophagus has more plants and textiles than

Antoine de la Porte's.

It's all sage.

There are tiny twigs.

It's probably a lamiaceae.

At first look, at this stage of the investigations,

the body appears to have been wrapped in a shroud,

since this fabric can be found in several places on the body,

almost everywhere.

Tomorrow, the two skeletons will be scanned.

Can the forensic investigation discover

who this mysterious character is and why

his skull was sawed open?

Meanwhile, in Notre Dame, at the transept crossing,

archaeologists make another major

discovery in and around Antoine de la Porte's tomb.

Bit by bit, they uncover a few sculpted stone fragments,

followed by dozens more, then hundreds

of pieces, many extremely well-preserved.

Some still bear traces of their original painted colors,

buried faces unexpectedly looking

up at the sky, hands and feet emerging from the ground.

Astounded, the archaeologists uncover over a thousand fragments.

Some weigh only an ounce, others up to half a ton.

But why were these magnificent medieval statues

destroyed and buried here?

Were they fragments from some kind of renovation, buried here

simply for convenience?

Or is this location evidence that they were prized relics?

On closer inspection, many of the pieces seem to be

thematically related.

We didn't expect to find so many sculpted elements, so

here is a real discovery that

was totally unexpected for us.

Now we're guessing that this is the medieval choir screen of Notre Dame.

The choir screen was a partition separating the nave and the choir.

In the Middle Ages, cathedrals were built using this partition wall.

These choir screens were richly decorated.

These are real works of art.

We were lucky to discover it like a puzzle.

It's like finding the Mona Lisa in several pieces.

Most of the medieval choir screens were totally destroyed by

the end of the 18th century.

There is no illustration, no image of the medieval choir screen

that once stood in Notre-Dame.

But in the south of France, at the Cathedral of St. Cecilia

in Albi, a rare example has

been preserved, giving a sense of how intricate and impressive

Notre-Dame's sculpted screen

might have been.

In the Middle Ages, the choir, its stone enclosure, and the

choir's screen marked the geography

of a sacred heart inside the cathedral.

It was an area reserved for canons and bishops, the exclusive

space of a religious elite under

a soaring vaulted ceiling, covered in gold and blue lapis

lazuli, extremely opulent for

the time.

Axelle Janiak is an art historian studying the history of choir screens.

Today, she's meeting Ariane Dore, the heritage conservator of

Albi Cathedral, for a special

tour.

At Notre-Dame, too, there was once a staircase in a similar location.

Welcome to the choir screen platform.

Thank you.

It's so impressive.

I'm happy to let you discover it since it's now off

-limits to the public.

You know, for me who works on fragments, it's quite

exceptional to be on a choir screen.

It's quite nice, yes, it's good to have things well

-preserved from time to time.

From here, Axelle can see clearly how the stone sculpture forms a screen

between the nave and the choir area.

Each choir screen was known to have its own unique characteristics.

The screen at Notre Dame was built two centuries earlier.

So what might that have looked like?

Wow, it's really impressive.

In the 19th century, while he was renovating Notre Dame de Paris,

Architect Euge?ne-Violette Leduc dreamt o -f

-reconstructing the choir screen.

Based on his study of other French Gothic monuments from the same period,

he made a drawing of what it might have looked like.

He imagined the sculptures depicting the Passion of Christ,

His Trial, Flogging, Crucifixion, and Burial.

The fragments discovered at Notre -Dame could be part

of scenes like these.

This immense puzzle is an exceptional discovery.

But at the same time, the archaeological team thinks they may

have found a surprising link between the fragments and

Canon Antoine de la Porte.

Archaeologist Helene Civalleri shows Axelle the clues sh e

has gathered so far.

In this plaster tomb, there were painted fragments that could

also belong to the choir screen.

And inside that masonry tomb, we found a well-known figure,

Canon Antoine de la Porte.

So, Antoine de la Porte was buried with fragments of the choir screen.

Since he died in December 1710,

That means the choir screen was probably destroyed not long before.

But why destroy something of such beauty?

To answer this question, it is important to understand the

function of choir screens.

In the Middle Ages, when canons gathered for the High Mass, the

doors of the choir screen closed.

Inside the choir, isolated from the public, the priests and the

canons celebrated High Mass,

including the sacred rite of the Eucharist.

All this is strictly invisible to the laity in the nave. This part of the

Mass, it really is the most important mystery in Catholicism.

That is, the fact that Jesus makes himself present in the bread and wine,

not only spiritually but also physically.

But during the 16th century, leaders of the Protestant

Reformation rose up and criticized

Catholic practices and rituals.

First, they consider Catholics to be idolaters, and if the

Eucharist is the true body and

blood of Christ, Protestants even described Catholics as cannibals.

And so there really is this idea that it's theophagy, it's

eating God, and therefore

that it's something that's not at all, they say,

enshrined in the Gospel.

The Vatican responded by organizing a great council for Catholic

bishops to plan a counter-reformation.

They decided to make a number of rituals, like the

Eucharistic liturgy, more visible

to the faithful.

This marks the beginning of the gradual dismantling of the

monumental stone choir screens.

From now on, we'll have an open choir.

Very often, the choir screen is completely demolished, but

sometimes, and this is what

happened at Notre Dame, they built a new choir screen with a

central section with a large

grid that lets you see what's happening at the altar.

But the faithful must remain at a distance.

They can't enter the choir.

You can see, but you can't approach.

Historical records suggest that at the beginning of the 18th century,

this architectural compromise

was partly paid for by Antoine de la Porte.

In his religious fervor, he invested his own money and lent

King Louis XIV the enormous

sum of 10,000 French livres to fully renovate the choir of

Notre-Dame de Paris.

The destruction of the medieval choir screen started a few

years before he died, and some

fragments were even used to build the enclosure where his

sarcophagus was placed.

In Toulouse, the bones of the mystery man are scanned, x

-rayed, and then analyzed by

radiologist Fabrice Dedouit, anthropologist Eric Crubezy,

and forensic pathologist Norbert Telmon.

They present their conclusions to the archaeologists, starting

with analysis of the skull.

The person who cut it probably tried several times.

It may raise the question of the kind of instrument they used for the skull.

You might have a kind of hook that allows the skullcap to

be separated from the rest

of the skull, which could perhaps explain why we have this

flaw here, where the person

may have pulled a little too hard and so part of the bone

has been broken away.

Opening the skull in this way would have allowed the entire

brain to be removed intact, as

in an autopsy. But why would such a thing be done?

When you look at the bones, you see the base of the skull.

That is something you only see

when the brain has been removed. We have what specialists

call a periosteal reaction.

They see evidence in the bone that the outer part of John Doe's

brain, called the meninges,

had been inflamed when he was still alive, leaving a mark on the skull.

So there was what we call chronic meningitis.

This means it's a subject who had violent headaches for several months.

This is probably one of the reasons which contributed to or

even caused his death.

Eric Crubezy thinks these symptoms were the reason why

the body was autopsied.

Doctors of the time wanted to understand what caused this

terrible suffering inside his

head.

Meningitis would have weakened John Doe's immune system, which

could have also caused him to

lose almost all of his teeth.

In fact, only four remain in his jaw.

They also find a specific pattern of wear inside the hip joint

that could point to John

Doe's identity.

Apparently, he was a horse rider.

When someone rides and does it for a long time and regularly,

in fact, the femurs that

enter the hip joint, in the pelvis, they push upward.

We can imagine him as a cavalier, as a nobleman.

Based on the skeleton, the scientists believe that John Doe

probably died young, around

the age of 30.

Because he was a horseman, the experts think it is more likely

that he was a layman and

not part of the clergy.

Back in Paris, the archaeologists review the data they've

collected to try to identify

this mysterious man.

Camille Colonna has the results of carbon-14 dating, a

technique that can pinpoint the

amount of time that has passed since a once-living organism died.

For the unknown, we did C14 tests.

To be safe, we took three samples and sent them to three different labs.

They all gave us the same answer.

It's definitely 16th century.

In France, the 16th century began with a period of renewal.

It was the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the

Renaissance, a time of our

and scientific flourishing, the beginning of modern

surgery which could explain

why John Doe's skull was sawed open as part of an autopsy.

With the carbon-14 dating, archaeologists can

focus their search through

Notre Dame's record books particularly. The lists of

tomb inscriptions that were

once visible on the floor of the cathedral.

There are 400 people listed in this book.

Can they identify some suspects that match the forensic

data they gathered so far?

Super.

It's really a beautiful book.

Jean de Saint-Veran, Pierre Cardonelle, Jean De landes,

oh, Antoine de la Porte!

Black marble tomb at the bottom of the small gate as you leave

the choir through the main

door into the nave.

Antoine de la Porte is indeed referenced in the

Book of Inscriptions.

Could there also be a lead for the mystery man?

Go ahead, turn, and then take your time.

Edouard de la Madeleine, tomb at the entrance on the right

in the transept crossing.

Here lies Edouard de la Madeleine, squire, lord of Saint

-Denis, Saint-Didier, Vauldemont,

Massilly, and Sauges, who died on April 15 after Vespers in the

year of our Lord, 1587.

Pray god for him.

This Edouard de la Madeleine matches the suspected profile

on three major points.

He lived in the 16th century, he's buried at the transept

crossing, and he was a squire,

meaning he was a nobleman in the service of the king or an

influential lord, spending

a lot of time riding horses.

But Edouard de la Madeleine is not a well-known nobleman, which

only adds to the mystery of of his high-status burial.

Christophe Besnier heads to the National Archives of Paris.

It houses a great part of the Medieval and Royal Archives,

which were assembled here after the French Revolution.

Curator Sebastian Nadiras welcomes Christophe

to this unique place.

On the upper level, there is a special collection that includes

hundreds of volumes, including

all the records of meetings the canons of Notre Dame held over the centuries.

This is the chapter register.

This is the register in which decisions are recorded by the

canons at their three weekly

meetings on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

What we can already find out is whether his death was

announced to the canons.

Each meeting report begins with the date and the list of canons present.

To go faster, we look in the margins of the registers for keywords.

I can't read at all.

My Latin is not good enough.

Saint-Fergeau and Epone, these are our states and forms

belonging to the chapter.

All right.

So this date.

So, at first look, I don't see anything.

And then we move on to?

Then it's April 17th, I can't see a thing.

Chatnay, Chapter Estate, nothing on Edouard de la Madeleine.

So, at first glance, I don't see anything.

They search up to a month after Edouard de la

Madeleine's presumed death,

without seeing any mention of him.

Finding information on Edouard de la Madeleine turns out to

be harder than expected.

He lived in the second part of the 16th century

when religious wars were raging between Catholics and Protestants.

Was this squire close to the king?

That might explain his funeral at Notre Dame and also why his

name is not in the registry.

King Henry III, caught in the middle of religious wars, was

assassinated by a fanatic monk in

1589, barely two years after the death of Edouard de la Madeleine.

Given the violence of the times, if Edouard had been a

particularly loyal servant of the King,

there's a chance his story could have been expunged from the

records after his death.

Meanwhile, in the suburbs of Paris, in a secret location,

fragments of the choir screen are cleaned inch by inch.

Systematically digitizing each stone fragment

will eventually allow for a virtual reconstruction of this immense puzzle.

The findings here are so numerous and the puzzles so complex

that this process will

likely keep the archaeologist busy for years.

For art specialists like chemical engineer Stephanie Duchene,

this discovery is an amazing

treasure trove.

In her quest to decipher the secrets of this choir screen,

Stephanie teamed up with art

historian Jennifer Feltman.

Jennifer is particularly interested in the

sculpted busts and heads.

She's eager to work on the huge challenge of reassembling

the fragments of this unique

choir screen. Known in French as a jube, she spotted these

two elements and had an idea.

It works very well and the mortar barely prevents them

from sticking together.

It's perfect. That's perfect.

It's just wonderful to see the head and body together.

When we have them together already, the Jube is coming more alive for us.

This is probably an apostle who would have been a part of the

scenes of the Passion of Christ.

It is the beginning of the reconstruction of this immense puzzle.

But there is another challenge.

The puzzle is incomplete.

An unknown number of fragments are missing,

lost during the 19th century,

when architect Violett Le Duc renovated the cathedral.

A few of these fragments are now in the Louvre Museum,

but others were sold to antique dealers

around the turn of the 20th century.

- I would be very curious to see

what the ear looks like here once this is.

- Now, Jennifer thinks she may have located

a missing head in the United States.

To confirm, she asked Stephanie to join

her in North Carolina

on the campus of Duke University.

There, at the National Museum, a severed head,

purchased in Paris in 1930 by a wealthy American collector,

is made available for inspection.

This figure really is striking because its style

is very consonant with around the year 1230.

And what's fascinating about it is also the same size

as the other heads that have been found

in the recent excavations at Notre Dame.

- The way the eyes and hairstyle are sculpted

suggests that this head was carved around the same time

as the statues of the choir screen of Notre Dame.

To be sure, Jennifer asked Stephanie

to take a tiny sample to compare its chemical composition

with the fragments from the French cathedral.

- Is that a white thing?

- Yeah, it's a tiny, light white thing.

- Wow. -Yeah.

- Could this be a lost piece of the medieval screen?

In the archaeologists' laboratories,

the search for John Doe continues.

Plant samples taken from this human-shaped sarcophagus

have been analyzed by Frederique Durand.

Her specialty is archaeobotany, the

study of plant remains,

including pollen, leaves, flowers, buds,

and micro-plant remains.

She's found a lot of sage and hyssop,

two plants with well -known medicinal properties.

Both have medicinal values that are quite similar,

like to fight chronic infections, asthma,

and chronic bronchitis.

When I started seeing all this, I wondered whether we weren't

dealing with a tuberculosis patient.

Tuberculosis is known in some cases to lead to meningitis.

So this diagnosis would be consistent with the evidence of

inflammation found in John Doe's skull.

Then, there are the textile fragments from his coffin.

Fabienne Medard, archaeologist and specialist in ancient textile,

analyzed and cataloged these extremely fragile samples.

She shared some samples with chemical engineer Mohamed Dallal

to examine the substance of these fibers.

This image shows the weaving structure.

You can clearly see the constituent threads.

But if you take a closer look, and we get into the material,

we'll realize what we're seeing on the screen.

They're not the fibers, but rather traces, imprints of the fibers.

As soon as we start to touch or handle these fibers,

We realized that we only have sediments, and that it

is only dust, in fact.

But I still managed to find some intact fibers

that have preserved the morphological

properties of the textile fibers

that will help us determine their nature.

So, under the skull and on the face, it seems to be the same tissue,

which leads us to think that there was a shroud covering the head,

The entire face.

We are in the presence of fibers, flax or hemp,

but I think flax given the geometry of the sections that you

were able to observe.

It is possible to imagine the preparations that preceded the burial.

The corpse was wrapped in a linen shroud.

Someone placed a wreath and a bunch of leaves on him.

Then, a mixture of tin and lead was applied to the edges of

the sarcophagus, making this

coffin completely airtight.

But these clues still don't shed light on his identity.

To support the case that this is indeed the nobleman Edouard

de la Madeleine, they want

to know Edouard's birth year and confirm that he died young.

Meanwhile, Edouard is not the only potential candidate.

Anthropologist Eric Crubezy thinks the unknown mystery man is a

famous French poet who suffered

from tuberculosis, Joachim du Bellay.

He also lived in the 16th century, was a nobleman, and was an

experienced horse rider.

Joachim died in 1560, when he was in his 30s,

and some of his poems describe sufferings

that match the symptoms of meningitis.

He is not in the Book of Epitaphs,

but there are records of his burial in Notre Dame,

in a chapel behind the choir.

But in the 18th century,

during some renovation works in this chapel,

his coffin could not be found.

Could he have been moved and reburied at the transept crossing?

There are no written records to confirm this.

In-depth historical research into the candidates and Notre Dame

burials could take years.

In the meantime, what else can science tell us about the mystery man's bones?

By collecting enamel from the teeth and a few grams of bone

from a fingertip, it is

possible to find clues to where he grew up.

It's called isotopic analysis.

Our bodies are made from the carbon and other chemical elements

we take in when we eat and breathe.

Among the atoms of those elements, there are variations called isotopes.

The isotopes of strontium, oxygen, and sulfur can point to the

geographical location where

someone grew up, and nitrogen and carbon can help determine

if he ate mostly fish or meat

throughout his life.

Anthropologist Rosen Colleter and geochemistry researcher

Klervia Jaouen process the samples of enamel and bone

collected from the remains.

In order to extract the chemical isotopes

that will tell the story of where he lived,

they first soak the samples in an acid bath

to break down the material.

The acid causes the bone samples to become soft,

allowing researchers to extract a protein, collagen.

Once concentrated, these collagen molecules

are placed in small tin capsules

to be analyzed by a mass spectrometer.

A few months later, they receive the first results.

So this is a map showing the probabilities for oxygen.

Ah, it's much more pronounced.

Once again, Paris, here.

And in terms of probability, we can see that the higher values

are further east in France.

This discovery seems to point away from the poet Joachim de Bellay.

He grew up in the west of France, and this is well

documented, especially in his own

writings.

The analysis says the mystery man grew up in the east of France.

This result matches with the little information the archaeologists

gathered so far about Edouard

de la Madeleine, who belonged to a noble family based in Burgundy.

But the two genealogical sources they dug up from the archives

are a bit contradictory.

One source, dating from 1711, says that Edouard de la

Madeleine died young and was a page of King Henry II.

Another genealogical tree, made later on in the 18th century,

mentions a date of birth.

Based on family memories, the 3rd of February 1536.

This would mean that he died at 51 years old.

For the time being, I think he's too old, because everything we've observed

on the skeleton is a younger skeleton, he's more like 35, 40.

Both records were written more than 100 years after Edouard's death.

So, it is certainly possible that one or more details are inaccurate,

including the dates of his birth and death.

That could explain why no mention of him was found in

the canon's registers.

And there are even examples of errors in the Book of Epitaphs itself.

Even if Edouard de la Madeleine is not the occupant of this sarcophagus,

his presence as a squire at the transept crossing, a canon's

territory, remains mysterious.

To understand why he ended up here will require a more thorough

investigation in the archives.

Despite the contradictions,

they cannot rule out Edouard de la Madeleine, and he is, in the opinion

of Christophe Besnier and Camille Colonna,

the most likely occupant of the mystery tomb.

In the meantime, the archaeologists have continued their

work at the cathedral.

And since the discovery of the two sarcophagi,

they have found more than a hundred other simpler burials

in the sides of the nave,

a less prestigious location.

They are placed in a wooden coffin or in plaster tombs.

But in the hundred burials found inside, there are no lead coffins.

This means it is still extremely rare.

Only two out of a hundred, it's not a lot.

The study of all these skeletons

will help build a large anthropological and isotopic

database, a tool for analyzing discoveries

to come.

And once this research is complete, the human remains will be

reburied at the direction

of the clergy of Notre Dame.

At the cathedral site, work has progressed rapidly.

a new spire has now been successfully installed.

But Philippe Jost,

the manager of the reconstruction of Notre Dame,

is especially grateful for the incredible

archeological discoveries made after the fire

caused so much destruction.

- When the fragments of the choir screen,

the remains emerged at the transept crossing,

there were extraordinary moments,

unique moments of emotion,

which reminded me of stories told by the great

archaeologists of the 19th century

who were digging in Egypt or Mesopotamia.

We really felt this emotion when the faces appeared,

fragments of architecture with their color,

and along with the emotion we saw and understood

the exceptional artistic quality of these remains.

So from every point of view, it was one of the highlights of

this five-year adventure

of the restoration of the cathedral.

For researchers and archaeologists, Notre-Dame-de-Paris has been a

fabulous open-air laboratory.

This great monument of French history surely holds more secrets

waiting to be discovered.

And with the cathedral now restored, the world can look forward

to the next chapter in the

incredible story of Notre-Dame-de-Paris.