Researchers have discovered a 400-year-old burial vault after following a long-lost staircase. The stairs were uncovered in the Church of Saint Philibert in Dijon, France. The Romanesque building back to the second half of the 12th century, according to the French National Institute for Preventative Archaeological Research (Inrap). In a press release, the organization explained the significance of the findings.
“In the transept, a vault, probably from the 15th-16th centuries, has been identified. In it, the deceased, children and adults, are buried in coffins, the bones of each individual being pushed to the sides to make room for the last deceased,” said the Inrap press release. Most of the remains belonged to adults dressed in shrouds placed in wooden coffins.
The archeological organization said, “Very few objects were found in the tombs apart from rare coins and two rosaries.” According to researchers, the foundation of the vault measures about 9 feet in depth, and slab tombs that were discovered date from the 11th through 13th centuries. While digging at the site, six sarcophagi were unearthed.
The St. Philibert church is the only Romanesque from the 12th-century church left in Dijon, according to The Institutional Repository for the University of Notre Dame (CurateND). Research posted by this organization states that “during the Revolution, the church was abandoned in 1795. It was given to the city which razed the two chapels and apse of the church to expand the present Rue des Vieilles-Ovens in 1825.”
We reported last year on another important Christian archeological discovery. A third-century artifact is creating major problems for skeptics who argue that Christ’s deity was “invented” in the fourth century. The Akeptous Inscription, as it has become known, was uncovered in northern Israel and dates to 230 A.D. Doubters have long made the argument that Christians viewed Jesus as a prophet but not divine until the council of Nicaea in 325.
The Akeptous Inscription is part of a mosaic that is currently on display in the Museum of the Bible. The artifact was discovered in northern Israel and dates to 230 A.D. almost one hundred years before the council. It references a woman named Akeptous who is devoted to “God Jesus Christ.” The inscription reads The God-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.” This indicates that early Christians believed in the divinity of Christ.
Apologist Sean McDowell interviewed Christopher Rollston, an epigrapher at George Washington University, to discuss the significance of the finding. McDowell said “I can’t believe more attention is not being paid to this. It’s that significant.” Rollston retorted “It’s really consequential.” The two scholars went on to explore the impact of this finding on common arguments against the church.
The Georgetown academic noted how “really fascinating” how archeology “often dovetails with textual material” He went on to explain how “This inscription… makes the declaration very clearly and emphatically that Jesus was divine,” Rollston said. “… Not all Christians believed in the divinity … but it was the predominant view among early Christians that Jesus was divine. And this inscription, therefore, is fascinating because it’s pre-Nicaean.”