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ARCHAEOLOGY

Medieval church and skeletons unearthed in Lucerne city centre

Archaeologists have discovered human bones and the remains of a church belonging to a medieval hospital in the Old Town of central Swiss city Lucerne.

Published: 15 August 2017 10:36 CEST
Medieval church and skeletons unearthed in Lucerne city centre
Lucerne Old Town with its famous Chapel Bridge. Photo: Ivo Scholz/Swiss Tourism
The discovery was made during the renovation of pipelines and paving around the Franziskanerplatz, according to news agency ATS.
 
Historians know that the Heiliggeist-Spital (Holy Spirit Hospital) was located in that area from the 13th century until it was demolished in 1656. At one time, the hospital had a church, but that was also torn down in 1788 after falling into disrepair.
 
During the excavation archaeologists uncovered not only the remains of the church but also evidence of an older church on the same site, believed to have been built in 1345.
 
Plaster fragments showed that the choir was decorated with colourful frescos, project manager Fabian Küng told ATS. 
 
 
Archaeologists also unearthed human bones from the garden of a former Franciscan monastery next to the church. The garden was used as a cemetery from 1600 to 1798 due to overcrowding in the city’s main cemeteries, said ATS. 
 
The Old Town of Lucerne is thought to have been occupied for at least 800 years. Though it has no official founding date, historians regard 1178 as the year the city was born. 
 
Many of its most beautiful buildings were constructed in the Middle Ages, with the chapel bridge – Lucerne’s symbol – built around 1300.
 

TODAY IN FRANCE

France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

France has paved the way towards paying reparations to more relatives of Algerians who sided with France in their country's independence war but were then interned in French camps.

Published: 16 May 2023 08:29 CEST
France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

More than 200,000 Algerians fought with the French army in the war that pitted Algerian independence fighters against their French colonial masters from 1954 to 1962.

At the end of the war, the French government left the loyalist fighters known as Harkis to fend for themselves, despite earlier promises it would look after them.

Trapped in Algeria, many were massacred as the new authorities took revenge.

Thousands of others who fled to France were held in camps, often with their families, in deplorable conditions that an AFP investigation recently found led to the deaths of dozens of children, most of them babies.

READ ALSO Who are the Harkis and why are they still a sore subject in France?

French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021 asked for “forgiveness” on behalf of his country for abandoning the Harkis and their families after independence.

The following year, a law was passed to recognise the state’s responsibility for the “indignity of the hosting and living conditions on its territory”, which caused “exclusion, suffering and lasting trauma”, and recognised the right to reparations for those who had lived in 89 of the internment camps.

But following a new report, 45 new sites – including military camps, slums and shacks – were added on Monday to that list of places the Harkis and their relatives were forced to live, the government said.

Now “up to 14,000 (more) people could receive compensation after transiting through one of these structures,” it said, signalling possible reparations for both the Harkis and their descendants.

Secretary of state Patricia Miralles said the decision hoped to “make amends for a new injustice, including in regions where until now the prejudices suffered by the Harkis living there were not recognised”.

Macron has spoken out on a number of France’s unresolved colonial legacies, including nuclear testing in Polynesia, its role in the Rwandan genocide and war crimes in Algeria.

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