BATH, ENGLAND—A team from Wessex Archaeology has uncovered brightly decorated 700-year-old floor tiles during excavations at Bath Abbey, according to a Somerset Live report. The abbey has been a religious center for well over 1,000 years, and the current Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul—completed in the seventeenth century—is a renowned example of gothic archiecture. The tiles, however, provide a glimpse into an earlier Norman cathedral at the site that was constructed in the eleventh century but fell into decay in the late Middle Ages, and lay in ruins by 1500. They were discovered ahead of renovations to repair the abbey’s floor and install a new heating system. Plans are now in place to preserve the floor in situ, where it will be covered by a protective layer before new flooring is put in. To read more about the archaeology of English abbeys, go to “Westminster Abbey’s Hidden History.”
