Saint-Bavon cathedral is famous for the beauty of its choir and its exceptional triptych, The Adoration of the Mystical Lamb by Jan Van Eyck. An astonishing discovery has just been made: a structure of nine walls built with human bones. "This discovery is unique in Belgium" , enthuses the Brussels Times Ruben Willaert, head of the archaeological team in charge of the work.
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The bones, mainly shins and thigh bones, date back several centuries, between the 15th century and the 18th century, we learn on the specialist's Facebook page. They belonged to adults. Skulls were also used to fill in the gaps. The area where they were found is the old cemetery in downtown Ghent.
"For the moment, we are situating the construction [of the walls] around the 17th and 18th centuries ," says another archaeologist, Janiek De Gryse, to the Brussels Times . But there is still a lot of research to be done. ” How to explain the construction of these walls? Perhaps the adjacent cemetery was saturated. "When you clean up a cemetery, you couldn't just throw out the bones ," says Ruben Willaert. People kept them. ” Particularly in view of the resurrection of the dead, an essential element of the Christian faith.
These excavations precede the construction of a reception center for tourists. They have already made it possible to unearth last year ... eight hundred skeletons and 5000 kilos of bones of all kinds.