GORINCHEM – It was a bit of a shock for the workers who were doing excavation work at the Grote Kerk last Tuesday. During the work on the fire extinguishing system, they came across hundreds of bones.
Not surprising in itself, because the area around a church was often used as a cemetery in the past. The rich were buried in the church and the less fortunate had to make do with a place outside the church, but in consecrated ground. "The discovery of the bones was not entirely unexpected. We had already taken it into account, which is why we had called in our city archaeologist when the contractor started the work," says alderman Herman van Santen.
Archaeological research Behind the church
Traces
The first indications of a cemetery were found in the silence centre of the Grote Toren. However, the big surprise was about ten metres west of the Grote Toren. “We hardly found anything inside. It only became really interesting ten metres further. We came across traces of coffins and later also bones”, according to Hans van Breugel of the municipality of Gorinchem.
De municipality of Gorinchem had not expected that it would be such a large amount of bones. Moreover, the bones were scattered all over each other. “These bones were collected with respect and are now in a safe place until we know what we are going to do with them. Money is not an issue here. We look at the quality of the solution, not at the money,” says Van Santen.
Plan of action
In order to find an answer to the question - what to do with the bones? - the municipality has asked the city archaeologist to write a plan of action. "In the short term, there will not be much to see here at the Grote Toren. The work has been stopped and we will not continue here until the plan of action has been written. Then we will also know what will happen to the bones. This can certainly take another six weeks", says Van Breugel.
Reburied
The alderman assumes for the time being that the bones will be reburied at the De Haarhof cemetery in Gorinchem. Normally, bone remains are reburied at the site where they were found. Van Santen: “In this case, that is not advisable because the graves will be disturbed again during any subsequent work. And even though these are graves that are hundreds of years old. We should still treat them with respect.”
The municipality cannot yet say exactly how old the bones found are. "It is certain that they date from before 1830, because that was the year the cemetery that was here was closed. The exact age of the bones can be determined with current technology. The archaeologist will now see whether we are indeed going to do that or whether we will leave it at that," says policy officer Wieteke van Hulten.
by Mirjam de Swart
January 22, 2008
The City of Gorinchem