DRAFT

Villa de Château-Pipet

Contributor: Yichen Liu
Published: 2021-04-21
Modified: 2025-06-29

Province

Province Description

Ancient Roman colony (founded 118 BCE) and senatorial province located in modern southern France, along the Mediterranean. This province had stronger cultural and political ties to Italy than the rest of Gaul.

Location

Sublocation

Villa de Château-Pipet

Villa

Villa de Château-Pipet

Keywords

Villa Description

1.2 kilometers south of the village of Andance, at the place called Château-Pipet, in the little valley of the Cueil, structures belonging without doubt to a Roman villa were discovered. As early as 1867, the abbot Chaillet noted the presence of ruins in this area. A salvage excavation in 1964 partially exposed a long ornamental pool associated with these structures. A rectangular garden [1] of 152 square meters formed a part of the villa. On the east side, the garden was bounded by a an unusual wall formed by eight half silos, or, seen form outside the garden, semicircular niches. Perhaps these niches were hidden by a wall along their back side, outside the garden, for a little of such a wall remains at either end. On the inside of the garden, in the middle of this wall were the beginnings of a larger apse (shown in dotted lines on the plan). One can see in this structure a supporting wall with internal buttresses. To the west and to the south, the space was bordered by a gallery [2] ; the shafts of its columns were discovered in the excavations. Between the garden and the gallery on the west was a rectangular pool with a semicircular apse extending into the garden in the middle. This pool, about 24 meters long and 2.3 wide, was covered in opus signinum. It was perhaps completed by two arms along the other galleries, thus forming a U. On the south side were found the beginnings of five rooms, but it was not possible to excavate them. In the northwest corner of the garden, a repair was found in the form of a wall running parallel to the pool but 50 centimeters east of the garden-side pool wall. It has been interpreted as a waterproofing device: a fill of a layer of green clay was place there without doubt to stop infiltration of water [4].

No date was proposed for the structure in the excavation reports.

Plans

Plan of Villa de Château-Pipet

Bibliography

  1. M. LE GLAY, Informations archéologiques, dans Gallia, 1966, P. 519-520.

  2. Chr. FRAISSE, J. DUPRAZ, sous la resp. de M. Provost, L'Ardèche 07, Carte archéologique de la Gaule, 2001, P. 195-196, plan P. 196 (worldcat)

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