Rajeev's World: Crypte Archéologique du Parvis Notre-Dame...

From the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme, I walked back to the Île de la Cité, with a single minded objective - to visit the Crypte Archéologique du Parvis Notre-Dame...

Right across the Notre-Dame Cathedral lie the crypts or Crypte Archéologique du Parvis Notre-Dame - an important archaeological site which was discovered by accident!

This site was discovered by accident in the 1960s when workmen were digging here to make a parking lot. And voila, they discovered building walls, structures and foundations dating back 2000 years, in the Roman era...

The fragments tell us how Paris has been constantly evolving over the centuries...

Before the Roman invasion, Île de la Cité had been the site of an oppidum (settlement) of the Parisii, a Celtic-Gallic tribe. Paris derives its name from the Parisii. The Romans invaded Gaul in the first century AD, defeated the Gauls at Melun (close to Fontainebleau) and then overran this area that we call Paris today. The Romans named their settlement here Lutetia...

And now that rings a bell - I can imagine the Gauls (Asterix and Obelix) fighting and hunting down the Romans...

A plan of Lutetia with Île de la Cité in the centre...

Paris became the capital of the French kings in the Middle Ages and it was between 1190 and 1213, Phillip II constructed a protective wall around the city. In 1364, Charles V left the Conciergerie in Île de la Cité and moved the royal base to the Louvre. That was when a second wall was built on right bank to protect the new suburbs...

The Seine played an important role in the history of this city right from the Parisii to the Romans to medieval kings to the Paris of today...

While legends surrounding Lutetia had been there in local folklore and Roman literature as well as the works of local writers like Victor Hugo, its existence was long regarded as a myth...

Thanks to these discoveries, modern Parisians have rediscovered Lutetia...

Victor Hugo attempted to trace the history of Paris from the days of the Parisiis in his works...

An impression of Roman Lutetia. which was featured in first features in Asterix and the Golden Sickle! God! I just can't get over Asterix and Obelix...