DRAFT

Villa de Muscapeu

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

Location Description

Tourves is a village about 30 kilometers almost due north of Toulon on the via Aureliana in the valley of the Camary, a tributary of the Argens.

Sublocation

Villa de Muscapeu

Villa

Villa de Muscapeu

Keywords

Villa Description

In the locality of Muscapeu, at the foot of a slope, was found this villa. Partial excavations in 1950 to 1960 exposed 4200 square meters. Constructed in the first half of the first century B.C. , it was occupied until sometime in the third century. An aqueduct from a spring supplied water. The pars urbana is to the east; the pars rustica to the west.

In state 1, from a sort of podium, the pars urbana, 34.5 meters on a side, overlooked the surrounding fields. At the center was a peristyle [1] (16.6 by 3.2 meters); and in the center, a rectangular pool (16.6 by 3.2 meters) with a bottom of opus signinum. The drain came out of the southeast corner of the pool and flowed along the south façade.

The living quarters were between the colonnade of the peristyle [2] and that of the façade of the villa [3], which opened out onto the surrounding countryside. In this northern wing, in the axis of the pool, was a reception room [4] completely open to the portico of the peristyle. The other rooms of this wing are poorly known but they had floors with white mosaics with black borders and stone thresholds with sockets at the ends for the pins on which the doors pivoted. In the southwest corner, a room with an apse, a floor of opus signinum, one part elevated and a square masonry base in the center has posed problems of interpretation: is a lararium, a place for religious services, or part of the baths to the west?

In a second stage, in the first century, a bath complex [5] with an open-air esplanade was built to the southwest of the peristyle. In a third stage, these baths were redecorated with marble. In a final stage, in the second century, new baths [6] were constructed to the west of the original complex, but the original was not abandoned.

Plans

Plan of The Villa de Muscapeu

Bibliography

  1. Brun, Jean-Pierre. Carte Archéologique De La Gaule: 83, Le Var 1. Paris, 1999, vol.2, P. 835-840, plan P. 836. (worldcat)

  2. Bouet, Alain, and Philippe Leveau. Les Thermes Prives Et Publics En Gaule Narbonnaise. S.l.: s.n., 1996, P. 401, Fig. 279-283. (worldcat)

  3. R. AMBARD, La villa gallo-romaine de Muscapeu, in Provence historique, V, 1955, P. 104.

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