House Cours Pouroules
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
House
House Cours Pourtoules
House Description
In 1984-86, prior to construction of a parking garage, a large area of some 4,700 square meters was excavated south of the Cours Pourtoules. About a third of the ancient structures were reinforced and reburied; the rest was destroyed. The area encompassed several ancient houses; the one of interest to us is in the west insula.
Keywords
- mosaics (visual works)AAT:300015342
- doliaAAT:300400601
- opus signinumAAT:300379969
- reception roomsAAT:300077176
- fountainsAAT:300006179
- opus sectile (visual works)AAT:300254462
Garden Description
The garden to the south is not completely known. The north gallery (BG), 5.5 meters wide at its widest point, was paved with black-and-white mosaics for at least 35 meters. At the west was a gallery (17 x 3.5 m) with a floor of pounded earth. One side was perhaps with a full wall pierced by windows. In the southwest corner of the garden was a well (FS) for which a half *dolium, found destroyed in the well, served as a puteal. The soil of the garden is brown clay with strata of sand. Analysis of this soil has not been able to identify traces of what was planted in it. The garden was probably put in during Augustan times, but the paucity of ceramic material that could support this date must be underlined.
In phase IIIA, the large room H was divided by columns into a central nave and aisles along the sides, where pilasters along the walls matched the columns. The central nave was paved with a new mosaic while the aisles kept a floor of opus signinum. The gallery [BG] kept the same floor as before. A long rectangular pool [BF] was installed along this gallery without touching it. Somewhat surprisingly, it was not centered either between the galleries of on the reception room [H].
In phase IIIB, in the second quarter of the second century, the east and west galleries of the garden were paralleled on the outside by two new open walks elevated some 40 centimeters above the level of the garden. To the south was added a structure to close in the garden. The well disappeared in this phase. In the area [CB] was installed a shallow pool suggestive of a foot bath. It was fed by a fountain roughly in the area [CI], but too badly damaged for precise description. Two little channels in the rim separating the two pools let the water flow between them. Fragments of a luxurious opus sectile which ornamented this arrangement were collected. Stairs at the northwest corner of the pool [BF] allowed one to get in and out of the pool. The smooth-shaft Corinthian columns of gallery [BG] were moved to be perpendicular to those of [FK]. Their regular spacing was interrupted in front of the large room [H] to leave open the view of the garden.
Among the objects found at Cours Pourtoules was a terracotta oscillum representing a theatrical mask. The site was abandoned at the end of the second or beginning of the third century.
Plans
Images
Bibliography
"Orange, Cours Pourtoules", Informations archéologiques in Gallia 87-88, P. 321-26
Bellet, Michel-Edouard. Orange Antique: Monuments Et Musée. Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1991, P. 70-71 (worldcat)
J.-D. Bouche, Orange, Cours Pourtoule, ilôt Ouest. Présentation des données de fouilles de l'état I et II 15-10 av. J.-C. à 40 ap. J.-C. mémoire de DEA Université d'Aix-en-Provence, dir. X. Lafon, 2003 (à verifier EM)
Places
- Narbonensis (province) Pleiades: 981537
- Gallia Narbonensis (province) TGN: 7030317
- Vaucluse (inhabited place) TGN: 7599818