21, rue Séguier, An Agricultural Establishment
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
21, rue Séguier, An Agricultural Establishment
House
21, rue Séguier, An Agricultural Establishment
Keywords
House Description
This site is east of the ancient town, 300 meters from the wall of High Empire times. It was found during an emergency salvage excavation of rue Séguier in 1992-93. An agricultural use of the soil during the second and first centuries B.C. is indicated by ceramics for carrying waste water to the fields and by planting holes. Then a building was constructed around A.D. 30 only to be rapidly abandoned between A.D. 70 and 80. The stones of the building were carried off at the end of the first century, and two burials made around 80-100. The house is organized around a rectangular courtyard (14.3 by 9 meters) surrounded by galleries known on three sides and presumed on the fourth. The floor of these passage ways was of pounded earth covered, in places, by a bed of fragments of amphora and dolia.
In the central part of the courtyard were found a series of horticultural pots, some in place in their trench, others uncovered during the excavation. A total of nine pots were found during the excavation of the whole sector. Three were discovered in situ in the courtyard against the north-west wall. Two more were found at the ends of the gallery in trenches dug after the house was abandoned to get out the stones of the adjacent walls. These pots the excavator placed in the corners. Two more have been restored in the alignment at equal distance from the others, modern operations having disrupted this part of the line. The excavator thus reconstructed a line of seven pots presumably for ornamental plantings along the outside of the portico.
Plans
Dates
B.C. 1-100 Agricultural use of the soil A.D. 30 A building constructed A.D 70-80 The building abandoned A.D 80-100 Two burials made
Bibliography
J.L. Fiches, A. Veyrac, Nîmes, CAG, 30/1, 1996, P. 127.
Y. Manniez, A. Recolin, fiche Nîmes, 21, rue Séguier (Gard) in Forme de l'habitat rural en Gaule Narbonnaise, n° 2, ed. APDCA, Juan-les-Pins, 1994, 6 p.
S. Barberan, Un aménagement horticole dans la cour d'un établissement pré-urbain à Nîmes (Gard) in Bulletin de l'Ecole antique de Nîmes, P. 67-22.(worldcat)
Places
- Narbonensis (province) Pleiades: 981537
- Gallia Narbonensis (province) TGN: 7030317
- Nîmes (inhabited place) TGN: 7008371