In Normandy, a team led by an archaeologist found a perfectly legible message, dating back more than 200 years. It was hidden in a time capsule.
In Seine-Maritime, the head of the Eu archaeological service, Guillaume Blondel, accompanied by volunteers, was carrying out excavations on a site in Bracquemont, called “Caesar’s camp”, at the beginning of September. This “fortified enclosure from the Gallic period” is located on the edge of a cliff. Given this location, this site is threatened by coastal erosion, which forced the team to accelerate research around this historic site. “We knew that there were German trenches here and archaeological excavations carried out at the beginning of the 19th centurye century,” Guillaume Blondel explained to France 3before discussing his new discovery.
On September 16, during excavations on the traces of the Gallic occupation, one of the volunteers took a shovel into a buried pot. It was a ceramic jar, containing a time capsule. It was quite full: it contained a message and two coins. This discovery left the entire team speechless: “The team’s reaction was a big ‘Wow’. It was a great surprise. Totally magical,” said the head of the archaeological service.
What intrigued them most was the message enclosed in a small 19th-century salt bottle, like those worn by women around their necks at that time. “We were eager to know what the message said,” added the head of the archaeological service.
The latter was dated 1825 and was signed PJ Féret, a Norman archaeologist and former mayor of Dieppe. He had written: “PJ Féret, native of Dieppe, member of several learned societies excavated here in January 1825. He continues his research throughout this vast enclosure called Cité de Limes or Camp de César”. A message that therefore links the different generations of archaeologists and gives an overview of the chronology of excavations on this site. “He left a message for future generations”, commented the team, as the report Actu.frThe message collected is still being studied.
Guillaume Blondel, the mayor of Dieppe and the mayor of Eu, decided in turn to write messages that they hid on the excavation site, where they discovered the capsule. “These are writings related to the history of the site, archaeology and the teams that worked here. I won’t say more about the content of the messages. To find out, we’ll meet up in 200 years,” Guillaume Blondel simply declared, to leave a little mystery.