Saint Maximin la Sainte Baume - Ste Madeleine Crypt

The "germ-cell" of the Ste-Madeleine church in St Maximin-la-Ste-Baume is reached by a staircase (16th C.) from the north aisle (light-switch on the wall). This low room with barrel-vaulting (4.24 x 4.48m/14 x 14.5ft; formerly covered with marble), dating from the end of the fourth C./beginning of the fifth C., contains the sarcophagi, dating from the same period, of Mary Magdalene (made of fine-grained marble from the Sea of Marmara), St Maximin, Sidonius and Marcel and St Susanne. Their reliefs show scenes from the Old and New Testaments and are some of the oldest Christian documents in France. The reliquary bust of gilded bronze (1860) contains a skull, supposedly that of Mary Magdalene.