Archaeological dig around Amsterdam's Nieuwe Kerk ahead of foundation strengthening

Archeologists are currently investigating around De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam ahead of construction work to give eight of the church’s pillars a new foundation next year. They expect to find many skeletons.

De Nieuwe Kerk on Dam Square opened in 1409 and has been carefully maintained over the centuries. In the last century, 133 of the building’s pillars got new foundations. Next year, the eight pillars in the western part of the church will get their turn.

New foundations mean excavation work, which is an excellent time for archeologists to investigate. Until June 2, they’re digging trenches around the pillars and examining the ground. They expect to find many remains of ancient human burials.

The remains of an estimated ten thousand people have been laid to rest in the Nieuwe Kerk. Almost all those graves were moved during restoration work between 1959 and 1980. “However, where we are now going into the soil, only underfloor heating had been installed. You don’t have to go deeper than sixty centimeters for that, so we expect to find even more,” Thijs Tehorst of the municipal Department of Monuments and Archeology told Parool.

The archeologists expect to find a few hundred skeletons. “In some places, we think the burials are up to five coffins deep,” Tehorst told the newspaper. “In one of the work pits, everything is still there. We managed to identify a woman. We will not reveal her name. She may still have living relatives. She was already quite deep. We expect from the church’s burial records that there are about five more people under her coffin.”

According to the municipality, there is a lot to learn from these graves, including about past Amsterdammers' lives, health, and funerary rituals. Researchers from the University of Amsterdam will examine some of the skeletons.

Based on the results of the archeological investigations, the municipality will decide how and when to start the foundation-strengthening work. Before the end of the year, the city will announce whether and when the church will close for restorations. “So that the church will be completely restored to its full glory when the city celebrates its 750th anniversary in 2025,” the municipality said.