Pierre-Percée: excavations ahead of reopening reveal the secrets of the keep

Beneath the keep of Pierre-Percée Castle, nestled in the Vosges mountains of Lorraine, a circular well hewn from rock has resurfaced. Surrounding it are crossbow bolts, ornate stove tiles, and the fragment of an hitherto unknown funerary stele: these are the latest discoveries from the second excavation campaign conducted by Inrap at this 12th-century fortified site, ahead of its full reopening to the public. Ordered by the Drac Grand Est at the request of the Saint-Dié-des-Vosges agglomeration community, which owns the site, this archaeological intervention sheds new light on nearly nine centuries of history of a comital fortress abandoned since the Thirty Years' War.