Three graves discovered in southern France are believed to provide the first archaeological and anthropological evidence of Muslims reaching the region and establishing communities as early as 1,300 years ago, according to research published Wednesday in PLOS One.
Radiocarbon dating on skeletons recovered from the medieval grave sites found that they likely belonged to people who lived sometime during the 7th through 9th centuries, Yves Gleize of the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap), Fanny Mendisco from University of Bordeaux, and their colleagues explained in a statement.
Credit: Gleize et al
In addition, Gleize, Mendisco and their fellow researchers found that the burials seem to have followed Islamic rites, in that the bodies were positioned with the head facing Mecca, and they also found genetic evidence suggesting their paternal lineage contains North African ancestry.
Based on their findings, they believe that the bodies recovered from these graves belonged to Berbers who had become part of the Umayyad army during the Arab expansion in North Africa during the 8th century. The findings support historical records indicating that there had been an early Muslim presence in southern Gaul during the early-to-mid 1700s, they added.
Men were buried in accordance with traditional Islamic rites
During the early Middle Ages, a Muslim conquest led to significant cultural and political change in the Mediterranean, and while their presence in the Iberian Peninsula has been well established, the authors noted that there had been little evidence that they traveled north of the Pyrenees. The new graves, found in Nimes, appear to provide proof of early Muslim arrival in France.
“We knew that Muslims came to France in the eighth century but until now we did not have any material evidence of their passage,” Gleize told AFP. The graves were originally discovered by a team of construction workers working on an underground parking garage in 2006, and contained the bodies of three men: one in his 20s, one in his 30s and one in his 50s.
The bones showed no signs that the men were injured in combat, each of the men were laying on their sides facing towards Mecca, in accordance with traditional Islamic burial rites. Two of the men were buried al-lahd, their bodies placed in niches dug into the right side of the grave itself with their backs places against brick, Ars Technica said. The other was buried al-shaqq, directly in a trench that was lined and topped with stones obtained from a Roman wall.
Both kinds of burial practices are still common among Muslims today, and similar burials have been discovered in medieval Islamic communities in Spain, the website added. According to the Daily Mail, this marks the earliest evidence of a Muslim presence in France ever discovered.
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Image credit: Gleize et. al
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