"We uncovered all these riches just 10-15cm under the floor slabs. It was completely unexpected."
They never did any scans? I remember being a kid and learning about how some old churches would entomb people directly under the floor (not catacombs).
They never did any scans? I remember being a kid and learning about how some old churches would entomb people directly under the floor (not catacombs).
The fire alarm system was acobbled together legacy system, no big surprise in a century old building. Thr number of cathedral fires, or similar fires in other hostorical buildings is negligible. In a sense Notre Dame served as a wake up call.
A cathedral is - among other things - a memorial to its builders. Changing the building is removing that function. Also, sprinklers may destroy more than they protect.
> The state owns all the cathedrals but doesn't insure them, so restoration currently has been reliant on donors,
This may be just me, but I find a rebuild-by-donations societally and spiritually a lot more meaningful than just some insurer and/or state handing over money. See also: Dresdner Frauenkirche [1]. It shows that society itself cares about the building, its history and cultural importance and spirituality.
This is most commonly seen in major disasters where the insurance companies fail and the state steps in.
That being said: as a non-christian German I gave a - to me significant - amount of money to the Notre Dame rebuild. I like the idea of helping build a piece of art that will survive me.
I remember visiting the Westminster Abbey. It’s full of famous dead people. Marked floor tiles and all.
Chaucer, Darwin, Newton, Dickens, lots of kings and queens all right under your feet.
https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-news/ashes-of-stephe...
There were some large (known) cavities around, which is the floor based heating system from the 19th century. The discoveries have been made below/around the heating system.
(The other known pieces of the Jubé, now at the Louvre, had afaik been discovered when the heating system was installed in the 19th century, so not a surprise we found more of them when searching the same area)
10-15cm underneath the floor seems so shallow that one would assume it would be picked up with such a scan. With that context, why shouldn't we assume a scan hadn't been performed?
Though I'd think you'd be able to verify an assumption like that.
Which is a good reminder that many things we don't know about are because no one has ever bothered to try, or failing that, they haven't tried hard enough.