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Les archéologues ont trouvé ce château il y a un siècle.

Les archéologues ont trouvé ce château il y a un siècle.
The archaeologists found this castle a century ago.
From Lesson 97:Past time marker (il y a...)·French

Questions & Answers about Les archéologues ont trouvé ce château il y a un siècle.

Wait, doesn't il y a mean "there is"? How does it mean "ago" here?
You are right that il y a usually means "there is" or "there are". However, when you put il y a right before an amount of time—like un siècle (a century)—it changes meaning to "ago". So, il y a un siècle literally acts like "there is a century (since it happened)", which we translate as "a century ago".
Can I change the word order to match English and say "un siècle il y a"?
No, the French word order is very strict here. Unlike English where "ago" comes after the amount of time, il y a must always come before the time expression.
Why do we use the passé composé (ont trouvé) here instead of the imparfait?
We use the passé composé because the archaeologists actually discovering the castle was a single, completed event in the past. If you were describing a continuous past state, like what the castle used to look like back then, you would use the imparfait.
Why is the word for "this" ce here, instead of cet?
Château is a masculine singular noun starting with a consonant, so we use ce. You only need to switch to cet for masculine words when they start with a vowel or a silent 'h' (like cet homme for "this man") to make it easier to pronounce.

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