Archaeologists have uncovered new evidence of life in the Roman-era city of Metlosedum – today’s Melun in France – while also revealing World War II shelters in the same soil, tying together two very different eras of local history.
Roman city stood at a key trade junction
Melun sits about 40 kilometers southeast of Paris, where a bend in the Seine once linked river barges and land caravans traveling between the Brie and Gâtinais plateaus. From the first century B.C. to the third century A.D., the Roman town grew mainly on the island of Saint-Étienne and the river’s left bank.
The settlement lay on the northwestern edge of territory held by the Senones, whose capital was Sens, and brushed against lands claimed by the Meldes, Parisii, and Carnutes.
Excavation reveals Roman street grid and homes
The current excavation—run by the municipal archaeology service with help from SDASM and Inrap—covers a 3,500-square-meter block.
Researchers chose the spot because two Roman roads once crossed here: an east-west route beneath today’s Rue de Belle Ombre and a north-south road that follows Rue de Dammarie. The find confirms the city’s long-lost street grid and hints at careful Roman planning.
Western structure may have been a grand Roman house
Crews have exposed two main building zones. On the western edge, stone footings outline a rectangular house, or domus, that spreads over roughly 700 square meters. Even though builders in later centuries stripped away many walls, the surviving foundations frame several rooms around a central open yard.
Near one corner, diggers found a well-built cellar preserved more than two meters below today’s ground level. A sturdy double-turn staircase once led down to the cool space, where a smooth stone column fragment still rests on the first landing.
Kitchen clues and wooden frames found in the eastern zone
About 40 meters east, a second cluster of walls covers nearly 600 square meters. Modern utility trenches have cut through much of it, yet clues to daily life remain.
Archaeologists mapped a small room with traces of a hearth made of flat roof tiles and a broken clay pipe that likely carried water—signs of a kitchen. They also logged several postholes packed with wedge stones, evidence that parts of the structure relied on wooden supports or lighter materials that have long since vanished.
Wells and storage pits hint at residential use
Open ground between the two buildings holds storage pits, shallow cellars, and eight stone-lined wells. The mix suggests that living spaces and service areas sat side by side, though researchers have found no traces of workshops or heavy industry.
Because only portions of each building survive, experts still debate whether the remains belong to two separate houses or one grand complex stretching beyond 2,000 square meters—an unusually large footprint for the region.
The dig also exposed a network of zigzag air-raid trenches built in a nearby schoolyard during World War II. Workers retrieved an Adrian steel helmet first issued to French troops in 1926, reminding visitors that Melun’s history does not rest in a single era.