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Following the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris on April 15, 2019, the setting up of the scientific program coordinated by the French National Centre for Scientific Research, coupled with the restoration works on the cathedral, presents an unprecedented opportunity to study the monument. The clearing, sorting and inventory process of the remains of Notre-Dame de Paris first revealed a great diversity of iron reinforcements within the gothic building. The study of these armatures not only contributes to our understanding of the monument but also unveils economic and social practices and their evolution throughout its construction phases. More specifically, the archaeometallurgical analyses of the iron armatures can provide information on metal production and circulation, the manufacturing processes or their role in the structure of the building, along with the dating of the material.Cramps are the main armatures found in the masonry of the tribunes and in the upper parts of the monument. The restoration works also revealed various tie-rods, pins, ridge caps and framing irons such as nails, bolted rods or keyed dowels. The cathedral’s restoration work in 2023 enabled on-site observations of various types of iron reinforcement, encompassing a corpus of over 400 cramps located on the upper walls. Currently, over 120 objects were collected for analysis and 50 of these ferrous armatures from different collections have already been studied. The quality of the metal production was highlighted by metallographic analyses. Artefacts with sufficiently high carbon content underwent radiocarbon dating, revealing the different construction and repair campaigns within the cathedral’s history. Slag inclusions were analyzed by SEM-EDS (major elements), providing insight into iron manufacturing processes, while LA-ICP-MS (trace elements) was used to help determine iron provenance. Trace element composition of slags from 32 archaeological iron production sites near Paris was also determined by MC-ICP-MS, to compare them with the composition of slag inclusions and propose or discard provenance hypotheses for the supply of Notre-Dame’s building yard.These archaeometallurgical studies reveal a great diversity of iron sources and contribute to a renewed understanding of iron circulation and trade in medieval Paris. They reveal potential recycling of the iron employed in the cathedral’s construction and highlight the craftsmanship of blacksmiths through discernible forge marks, particularly on cramps. These observations and analyses will be emphasized through network analysis considering at the same time the iron sources, the forge marks and shaping of the iron, their dating and location in the monument.
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