The origin of Paris: I saw the 2,000-Year-Old Secret Beneath Paris

The Earful Tower: Paris

The episode explores a groundbreaking archaeological discovery beneath the Hôtel-Dieu hospital on Paris's Île de la Cité, where a 2,000-year-old Gallic stone and wood wall was unearthed. Host Oliver G secures an

Key takeaways

• Archaeologists uncovered a 20-meter-long stone and wood wall dating to roughly 200–50 BC beneath the historic Hôtel-Dieu hospital on the Île de la Cité.
• Carbon dating and construction techniques (wood reinforcement, sand embankments) confirm it is Gallic rather than Roman, settling a long-standing debate about the Parisi tribe's location.

Main topics

• Gallic fortification discovery
• Parisian archaeological history

Notable quotes

"This is... Quite possibly proof of where Paris began."

Conclusion

The episode highlights how modern urban development can inadvertently unlock ancient history, while

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Hello everybody. So, last week, the French government announced a major archaeological discovery in Paris. As they put it in a press statement, they had unearthed a rampart of Gallic Lutetia. But I'm afraid that headline does no justice whatsoever to this remarkable discovery. This isn't just a rampart of Gallic Lutetia. Where's your imagination, French government? This is... Quite possibly proof of where Paris began. The origin of the city itself. In more practical terms, this discovery was actually a wall that was most likely built over 2,000 years ago to protect an ancient tribe from the invading Romans. A wall built of stone and wood, the wood being the crucial clue, we'll get to this later, in an effort to defend something worth defending. A wall that would be dramatically torched, along with the rest of the city, by the Parisi tribe themselves. A wall built strong enough to survive perhaps 2,200 years, only to be unearthed this summer, becoming quite possibly the key that unlocks the mystery of the origin of Paris. As a huge fan of Paris and its old city walls, this story intrigued me much more than it did the other journalists who wrote up their international stories based on that government press release, and I had to know more. What exactly did these archaeologists find? Where did they find it? What does it look like? What does it mean? And could I find a way to see it myself and to take you with me? The short answer to the last question is yes. Speaker 1 (1:53) So if this is the wall, are we standing outside Speaker 2 (1:55) the wall now? Yeah, exactly. So that was Speaker 1 (1:56) Paris Speaker 2 (1:57) 2,000 years ago. Yeah. This is crazy. Speaker 1 (2:01) Hey, when these other Speaker 2 (2:02) journalists Speaker 1 (2:03) have interviewed you, Speaker 2 (2:03) are they passionate about it like me? I don't believe it. Speaker 1 (2:07) You're the most excited. Yeah, I'm not surprised. Me and you, we're crouching Speaker 2 (2:12) on the outside of Paris 2,000 years. We're the enemy. Speaker 1 (2:18) That's the voice of Speaker 2 (2:19) Julien Avinin, the chief of the Archaeological City Council Department, and you'll hear more from him soon, because in today's episode of the Eiffel Tower, I'm going to share the story of how I convinced the lead archaeologist to tell me more about it, and to take us all to the site of the great discovery where Paris began. This is an episode of the Eiffel Tower, a podcast that's 10 years old and all about Paris and France. I'm Oliver G and I like nothing more than digging around for great stories like this one. Let's get into it. Speaker 2 (3:01) So this episode, incidentally, fits into the A to Z of Paris. This is I is for Ile de la Cité, where we lay our scene. It could also be I is for Iron Age, if you like. But first, I think before anything, we need to do a quick history lesson so that you can all be suitably impressed with the scale of this discovery that could rewrite the history of Paris. I think many people know that Paris was once a Roman city, and it was once known as Lutetia. So the Romans arrived about 2,000 years ago, essentially replacing the Gallic tribe known as the Parisi. And that's where the name Paris comes from, from the Parisi tribe. And before this tribe, there'd been thousands of years worth of history. I mean, people living here, visiting here on canoes, this kind of thing. But the Parisi tribe was the first to have a place worth fortifying. As in, they built walls around it. They wanted to protect things on the inside. More on that soon. However, there's long been a debate about where the Parisi tribe was actually based. And given we're talking about something that's over 2,000 years old, it's almost impossible to find proof of this kind of thing. But, we have clues. We know they lived on an island in the Seine. So Julius Caesar himself described the city. as being on an island that was linked by bridges. And I think most people suspected that this must have been the Ile de la Cité, which is where Notre Dame stands today. But other people had argued that it could be further along the river at another place, Nantes specifically. But the point is, no one had any proof either way, until today. The archaeologists digging under this ancient hospital in the center of Paris made what can, I mean... You can only really call it a dizzying discovery that they revealed last week. And it's a stone and wood wall that's 20 meters long, about, I'd say about knee height, maybe a little bit higher than that. And it's the base of this wall that was much higher. So you've got to imagine the wall once was probably the height of a basketball ring, maybe a little bit higher. And at the top of that wall is around what ground level is today. Okay, so at this Hotel Dieu, which is an ancient hospital. I mean, some people say it's as old as from 651 AD. And some people say it's the longest or the oldest continuously running hospital in the world. So just the idea of digging under it is crazy. And you've got to imagine they start digging three, four meters down when they make this discovery. So, I mean, it's already exciting for an archaeologist. digging this far down. But of course I'm curious about it and I want to know more. And so incidentally, I just finished my walking tour of the Murray. It was a Monday morning and I'm right across from Notre Dame and I'm thinking... I'm just going to go and see what happens if I knock on the door. And that's exactly what I did. In fact, I went to the, so we're talking about the east side of the Hotel Dieu, the hospital. And I actually, I bought a crepe with Nutella and banana in it. So I was eating, I was very casual. This could be a good lesson for anyone thinking to get, any youngsters thinking to get into journalism or storytelling. Because I was like, there's a story on the other side of that big wall. And I know it's a good one. How do I get in? So I just went up to one of the workers and I said, I'm a journalist. I've got a podcast. I want to do an interview with someone. Can you help me? So I just went to a random guy. And he says, oh, you've got to talk to the security inside. So I just walked in. I talked to security. I say a similar thing. All in French, of course. He says, he just yells out, hey, David, David. Some guy, David, comes over. This guy, David, said, oh, he should talk to this lady. So someone else takes me in to meet this lady. The lady, no idea still who she was, she says, oh, you've got to talk to this guy. And this is an instant. This is a slow process. The guy that comes out is an engineer. And I repeat my story, tell him what I'm looking for, sort of at this point hiding the crap. Not that I was just chewing away on it, but it was there. And he says, oh, I've got to take you to the archaeologist. So he takes me to an archaeologist. And I'm going deeper and deeper into like a building site inside this old hospital. Finally, I'm out the front of the main archaeologist's room. And an archaeologist comes out and sort of sets the scene for me. She says, look, the main guy's in there. You wouldn't believe how busy he is doing interviews, not just with the press, but talking to people about what happens next. This is a major discovery, you know. huge. And I was like, okay, fair enough. Maybe I could talk to you. I mean, you've seen this thing, right? She goes, no, no, we need to do some work. We can't all just be talking to the journalists all the time. Okay, well, what do you think I should do? And she said, I'll let him know you're here and it's up to him to come out if he's interested enough and you can wait. And I said, well, for this story, I'll wait all day. So I explained who I was and how there are many, many of you listeners out there, and I added that I was a huge fan of city walls. In fact, I think I even said maybe I was one of the top experts on the old medieval Philippe Auguste wall, and that this really meant a lot to me. And then she said, take a seat, you might be waiting a while. Luckily, I had that crap, because