TOURS, FRANCE—The Miami Herald reports that the excavation of the entirety of Beaumont Abbey, including the church, cloister, peripheral buildings, abbey dwellings, the refectory, the kitchen, the parlor, cellars, ovens, pipes, washhouses, latrines, an icebox, the gardens, and dumping areas, has been completed. This is the first time a complete abbey site has been excavated in Europe, according to Philippe Blanchard of the French National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research. The remains of a medieval village were found under the oldest structures, which date to 1002. The Benedictine nuns were expelled from the abbey in 1790, at the start of the French Revolution. More than 1,000 burials, spread out over a parish cemetery, a cemetery for the nuns, a servants’ cemetery, and the village cemetery, were also uncovered. Nuns buried in the church’s nave were interred in wooden coffins with crucifixes, medals, and small bone crosses. Some of the more elaborate tombs are thought to have belonged to abbesses and important benefactors. Sets of rosary beads imported from Rome and statuettes likely connected to religious tourism were also recovered in the church. To read about two lead sarcophagi that were found underneath the floor of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral, go to "Update: Notre Dame's Nobility."
