How others handled it, and got the job done

This is from The New York Times archive, and it was 24 years ago (God bless the internet). The trouble is that we’re just too damned ta’ wara l-muntanji when it comes to these things.

PARIS’S PAST UNEARTHED IN DIGS AT LOUVRE
Richard Bernstein
Published: December 4, 1984

PARIS. The two main courtyards of the Louvre Museum have been converted into a maze of trenches and holes, sunken remains of walls and foundations and mounds of scrupulously sifted earth and centuries-old debris. Hundreds of workers armed with spades, brushes, cameras and microscopes are peering into the past of this city.

This vast archeological undertaking, designed to clear the area of its artifacts and treasures before construction of the new Louvre is finished early in 1986, will expose for the first time the hidden portions of the original and much-modified royal palace. Along the way millions of objects used by more than seven centuries of Parisians have been unearthed.

”There has never been a dig like this, not in Paris, not in France, not in Europe,” said Yves de Kisch, the chief archeologist at the excavation in one of two courtyards, the Cour Napoleon. ”It will provide an accumulation of knowledge on the nature of the area, on the construction of buildings, on manufacturing, on artisanship, on the technology of wells, on the pattern of economic life.”

The other excavation is in the large interior square of the Louvre known as the Cour Carree, the site of the original 12th century fortress that was altered and extended over a period of 600 years to become the great museum known today.

Patterns of Everyday Life

It may take years for historians, architects, chemists, economists and other scholars to sift through the material being uncovered at both sites. And while it seems unlikely that the findings will greatly alter perceptions of the history of Paris, they will provide an abundance of tangible evidence on the patterns and textures of life in the city as it expanded from a rural hamlet to a great national capital of a modern state.

The Cour Napoleon, extending between the two great outer wings of the Louvre, was from the 13th century to the mid 18th century a site of urban homes, shops streets that ran from the banks of the Seine north toward the hills of Montmartre. Since the dig started in April, this site has produced 8 million objects including pottery shards, kitchen utensils, toys, clothing, coins, tools, glassware and banquet leftovers.

Michel Fleury, the archeologist in charge of the excavations in the neighboring Cour Carree, points out to visitors the impressive vestiges of the 12th century castle and later additions that will make up the center pieces of a planned archeological crypt. Mr. Fleury said the site contained a moat that was filled in by King Francois I in 1528, thus sealing in thousands of objects in everyday use in late medieval France.

”The contents of the moat remain exactly as they were in the year 1528,” he said, adding that 100,000 pieces of pottery had been uncovered so far. ”What is unique,” he went on, ”is that we know exactly how old the pots are and we can be sure that they came from the palace itself.”

Reorganization of the Louvre

All this work stems from an ambitious reorganization of the Louvre announced by the Government of President Francois Mitterrand last year. The most visible part of the project will be a glass pyramid designed by the American architect I. M. Pei, to be placed in the middle of the Cour Napoleon. At the same time, the long northern wing of the building, which has been occupied by the French Finance Ministry since 1871, will be turned over to the museum and used as new exhibit space.

The various parts of the palace will be connected by underground passages whose focal point will be Mr. Pei’s pyramid. The underground areas will also contain storage rooms, an auditorium, information galleries, a restaurant, cloakrooms and many other service facilities that the Louvre has never contained because its architects over the centuries had not intended it to be a public museum. Visitors will thus be able to see the earliest vestiges not only of the Louvre itself but of Paris as the symbol and the center of France.

Fortress Built 782 Years Ago

In the year 1202, when King Philip Augustus completed the fortress that became the Louvre, Paris was already an important medieval town. His fortress stood just outside the walls of the city, which formed two half circles, one on the left bank of the Seine and the other on the right bank. The castle was inside a square with 10 large towers and two gates. Its main feature was an immense central tower some 100 feet high.

One-hundred fifty years later the Louvre first became the residence of the kings of France. Paris had expanded beyond its walls until, in the middle of the 14th century, King Charles V built a new defensive wall that contained the old Louvre fortress. Charles turned the fortress into a magnificent palace. It was drawn in miniature by the Limbourg brothers in the reign of Charles VI, so its appearance is known today.

In 1526 King Francois I decided to tear down the great central tower and to rebuild the palace. In 1528 the moat that surrounded the palace was filled in, preserving the objects it contained for today’s archeologists. The project, finished by Henry II, took half a century. The walls of the old fortress were knocked down in 1624 and 1660. The great architect Pierre Lescot built the wing that bears his name on the western side of the Cour Carree. As Mr. Fleury put it, ”the memory of the form and even the exact placement of the medieval castle were completely erased.”

While no major changes were made in the Cour Carree after the reign of Henry IV, who quadrupled its size, the royal palace continued to grow. In 1607 Henry IV finished the long southern gallery that runs along the banks of the Seine. The final construction was carried out in the middle of the 19th century by Napoleon III, who knocked down the remaining houses in the Cour Napoleon and converted it into the large cobblestone courtyard known today.

Wide Variety of Artifacts

This part of the archeological project will leave no crypt or visitors gallery. But Mr. de Kisch said enough objects were being uncovered to fill two or three museums.

Among the findings have been an entire treasury of 18th century silver coins bearing the profile of King Louis XIV at various stages in his life, pieces of Venetian glass, Ming Dynasty pottery, hairbrushes, sewing needles, ivory pins, belt buckles, dice and buttons.

Meanwhile, the archeological crypt being uncovered now in the Cour Carree will show remains of the original Louvre, including the base of Philip Augustus’s great 12th century tower and portions of the northern and eastern walls, first uncovered by a team of archeologists a few weeks ago. Also visible will be the remnants of Charles V’s mid-14th century additions, including the base of a celebrated circular staircase that rose from the moat around the central tower to the living quarters of the king.

Among his proudest finds, Mr. Fleury said, are a bent scabbard decorated with silverplate horses and other heraldic pieces that were parts of a knight’s armaments. ”It is very likely,” Mr. Fleury said, ”that these were carried by knights representing King Charles VI and his son, the dauphin Louis, in a jousting tournament held at the beginning of the 15th century.”