UvA-archaeologists find more than 100 graves in Nieuwe Kerk
UvA archaeologist Jeanine Abels and city archaeologist Thijs Terhorst began excavations in the Nieuwe Kerk a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, their team of researchers, including five UvA students, has already found more than a hundred bodies under the stone floor. “We found one body with the feet still in the stockings.”
Deeply buried are they. The last remains of Jan van Speijk (1802-1831), boat commander during the Belgian Revolt against the Northern Netherlands.
The small, parentless Jan, raised in the civil orphanage in Amsterdam, was trained as a tailor. But his fate would determine otherwise: as a self-made seafarer, the young man managed to promote himself from sailor to one of the leading captains of the Dutch fleet. In 1831, fierce currents caused his boat to drift into hostile Flemish territory. The chauvinistic Van Speijk refused to be overpowered. Sticking a cigar between barrels of gunpowder, he blew up his ship. “Become an infamous Brabander (Belgian, ed.)? Then I rather explode!” he is said to have shouted, as his sailors and he were blown to bits. What remained of Van Speijk was reverently buried in the Nieuwe Kerk.
Van Speijk is not the only one buried in the stately church. UvA archaeologist Jeanine Abels, city archaeologist Thijs Terhost and colleagues are currently conducting excavations in the Nieuwe Kerk and expect to come across as many as two hundred bodies. The researchers will get a chance to dig the graves before renovations to the church start. Huge sand pits have been dug to a depth of one and a half metres between the pillars. “Mainly wealthy families were buried under the stone floor of the church until 1866,” says city archaeologist Terhorst. Together with other archaeologists and six students, five from the UvA, he inventoried who, where were buried and what information that gives about the period.
Graves open to public
The archaeologists expect to excavate more than two hundred graves as the graves are opened to the public for the first time in 150 years. “Most of the excavated skeletons are from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,” explains Abels, who wrote her bachelor’s thesis in archaeology on 22 individuals found. So the many bodies buried from its construction in 1409 until the seventeenth century, such as those of Rembrandt-painted physician Nicolaes Tulp or poet Joost van den Vondel, will not be found.
The archaeologists can now also be admired by exhibition visitors from an aerial bridge. From that elevation, the public can look out over the exposed graves, from which dark bones appear. The researchers are up to their shoulders in the pits searching for skeletons, watched by church visitors from 11am to 5pm. “They can soon see how we will have lunch there,” Terhorst points to a dining table next to the pits.
Curious finds visitors may also be able to spot for themselves. “We already found a body with the feet still in the stockings. Or a skeleton in a winter jumper,” Terhorst smiles. It is nice when such elements are unexpectedly intact, because such features can also mean something.“We found a set of teeth with a gold crown still in them.” This is historically interesting, because apparently the body was therefore not always stripped of the valuable gold, Terhorst explains.
Van Speijk is not the only one buried in the stately church. UvA archaeologist Jeanine Abels, city archaeologist Thijs Terhost and colleagues are currently conducting excavations in the Nieuwe Kerk and expect to come across as many as two hundred bodies. The researchers will get a chance to dig the graves before renovations to the church start. Huge sand pits have been dug to a depth of one and a half metres between the pillars. “Mainly wealthy families were buried under the stone floor of the church until 1866,’ says city archaeologist Terhorst. Together with other archaeologists and six students, five from the UvA, he inventoried who, where were buried and what information that gives about the period.
Diseases on bones
Abels also conducted pathological research into the ailments of the deceased. “You can deduce diseases from traces on bones,” the archaeology student explains. For instance, Abels found out that although a buried woman was recorded as having died at 64 from pneumonia, the body showed signs of years of osteoarthritis, periosteitis and inflamed tendons. UvA’s Abels: “By physically looking at the bones, we can discover what disorders and diseases were prevalent in, say, the nineteenth century.”
Burying in churches was banned in 1866 due to hygienic concerns (it was suspected that the fumes emanating from the bodies were harmful), but before that date, burying in churches was still common in that century. Deeper than one-and-a-half metres, however, and thus by about the mid-eighteenth century, the excavations will not go any deeper, as the renovation work does not require digging deeper either. “Further grave clearing is simply not necessary,’ Terhorst argues. “We will also already have to rebury these remains in another place.”
Loose charnels
And bones are found in large quantities in the pits anyway, he notes. “Coffins were stacked all over the church floor in as many as four to five layers. In the residual spaces, for example near the pillars and edges of the church, we see large quantities of remains of young children and loose charnels that were once released during the clearing of older graves and were then placed there by grave layers.”
By early October, the excavations should be completed. But Terhorst and Abels will continue digging in Amsterdam. “Maybe soon the Oude Kerk again?” But they are also happy to be there again if the depths of the Nieuwe Kerk are allowed to be explored after all. “There were probably tens of thousands of people buried here in those four centuries,” says Terhorst. Whether the diggers have already unearthed the bone fragments of boat commander Jan van Speijk among them, they cannot say. “Unfortunately, we don’t want to disclose that in connection with possible next of kin.”
Until early October, the archaeologists can be admired with explanatory audio and images on Wednesday to Friday from 11am to 6pm. Also on weekends, the excavated wells in the Nieuwe Kerk, and the Discover the Nieuwe Kerk exhibition, will be open for visits at those times.
