Paris (AFP)
Notre-Dame de Paris is looking for stones "aesthetically and physically compatible": a little less than two years after the great fire which devastated the Parisian cathedral, it is time to select the cut stones which will replace those, numerous, damaged during of the disaster.
Also, an agreement was signed between the public establishment responsible for the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris and the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM), a public body which acts as a national geological service.
These stones, which must be "aesthetically and physically compatible" with the architectural ensemble formed by the cathedral, must be found "in significant quantities", the statement said on Wednesday.
To do this, geological investigations in quarries and laboratory tests on samples are planned.
The original stones had been extracted in the 12th / 13th centuries from the subsoil of Paris: they were limestone rocks from a geological layer formed 41 to 48 million years ago.
Such deposits emerge in many sectors of the Paris basin.
They are still exploited today for the supply of stones, in ten quarries.
These limestones are the result of a complex process of sedimentation, which the program, scheduled to end in mid-2021, plans to study in order to identify their characteristics.
Attention will first be paid to active quarries, then to unexploited deposits if necessary.
In November, the government presented an ordinance facilitating the reopening or extension of new quarries where necessary.
This year, begins the phase of restoration of the jewel of Gothic art which must be completed in April 2024. The exact knowledge of the materials used in the Middle Ages - wood, stones, etc. - is essential to ensure a reconstruction identically in the best conditions of the building partially destroyed on April 15, 2019.
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