Puymin Quarter,Sanctuary with Portico's,Formerly called Pompey's Portico

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

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

Puymin Quarter, Sanctuary with Portico's

Garden

Puymin Quarter, Sanctuary with Portico's

Keywords

Garden Description

Located to the east of the house of the Laurel-crowned Apollo, 110 meters south of the theater, the Sanctuary with Porticos is not entirely unearthed and continues under the modern city. Constructed in the course of the first century A.D., the monument was formerly interpreted as a public promenade or a the garden of a vast urban domus. Today it is considered a public edifice, a sanctuary connected perhaps to the cult of the waters. Covering 2,000 to 3,000 square meters, it was organized in at least two terraces overlooking an esplanade with porticos having a large, central, ornamental pool which was probably surrounded by plantings. A street-level, covered walkway of Tuscan order ran 52 meters along the north side, elevated 20 centimeters relative to the garden. In the center of this walkway was a room with an apse holding a central pedestal and two symmetric niches for statues.

A stone gutter to catch rainwater separated the walkway from the garden. One entered the garden through a porch having two columns more massive than the others which supported, no doubt, a higher pediment.

In the center of the court was a monumental pool 9.5 meters wide and 1.6 meters deep, as yet exposed for only 3.1 meters of its length. A large apse ornamented its northern end, and its bottom was paved with flagstones. Necks and bellies of terracotta amphora were inserted horizontally into the masonry to shelter fish. In the center of the pool, a masonry construction with walls 60 centimeters thick seems to have supported a small structure with two square rooms 5.25 meters on a side, perhaps a chapel. Stairs go down into the pool on the west side.

Plans

Plan of Sanctuary with Portico's

Dates

A.D. 1-100 constructed

Bibliography

Chr. Goudineau, Y. de Kisch, Vaison-la-Romaine, Guide archéologique de France, 1999, 1ère éd. 1984, P. 74-77; (worldcat)
Provost, Michel, Joe͏̈l-Claude Meffre, and Dominique Carru. Vaison-la-romaine Et Ses Campagnes. Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2003, P.251-254. (worldcat)

Places

Thès estate, villa of the Peacock

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Province

Province Description

Location

Sublocation

Thès estate, villa of the Peacock

Villa

Thès estate, villa of the Peacock

Keywords

Villa Description

TThis building, thought to be a suburban villa, is in fact only very partially known. It is situated just at the edge of the town, below the "shopping quarter". Discovered on property of the Thès family in 1964, it was excavated and studied from 1966 to 1989. The dwelling was built, according to Yves de Kisch, between approximately A.D. 70 and 100. In the Severin period, according to H. Lavagne, it received a rich decoration of homogeneous mosaics. Abandoned at the end of the third century, it shows traces of reoccupation in late antiquity. Only the northern part of the house is known; the wings to the east and west and the southern part were destroyed in the course of earth moving for a modern subdivision. The northern wing is constructed symmetrically relative to the axis of the principal reception room [4], where the peacock mosaic was found which gives the house its name. On the south, this room opened directly, without a portico, onto the courtyard, (25.5 m in the east-west direction) which was undoubtedly treated as a garden. The southern limit is unknown, but a hypothetical reconstruction has made it a rectangle with an area of some 1000 square meters, which seems on the high side. An ornamental fountain, now in ruins, stood in a pool in front of the reception room [4]. Of the fountain there remains only a block of concrete surrounded on three sides by a trench 18 centimeters deep. The pool had a marble revetment, and around it were three flagstones of white molasse (a soft sandstone.) The whole structure occupied a space 4 meters by 1.5 meters. The fountain was fed by a lead pipe, of which a fragment was found.

The façade of the back of the building opened to north by a portico [4], 3.45 meters wide. Beyond it lay an elongated courtyard (38.15 by 5.50 m) paved with concrete. An ornamental fountain with a water ladder was installed in a niche in the middle of the retaining wall in line with the center of the reception room. The top of the semi-dome of the niche has been found. Water supplied through a lead pipe gurgled over white marble steps framed between pilasters, spilled into a polygonal pool about 2.5 meters long, then rushed along a steeply sloped gutter under the reception room and into the courtyard on the south.

Plans

Plan of Villa of The Peacock

Images

Axon of Villa of The Peacock

Dates

A.D. 70-100

Bibliography

KISCH, Yves . La Villa Du Paon: Le Quartier Des Boutiques : Vaison-La-Romaine. Vaison-la-Romaine: Mairie, 1990 (worldcat)
H. Lavagne, Recueil génral des mosaïques de la Gaule romaine, III, province de Narbonnaise 3, partie sud-est, Xe suppl. à Gallia, Paris CNRS, 2000, n° 647-53, p. 157 ss.
Provost, Michel, Joe͏̈l-Claude Meffre, and Dominique Carru. Vaison-la-romaine Et Ses Campagnes. Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 2003, P.277-287. (worldcat)

Vasio Voncontiorum on Gardens of the Roman Empire

Puymin Quarter,Sanctuary with Portico's,Formerly called Pompey's Portico

Province

Province Description

Location

Sublocation

Garden

Keywords

Garden Description

Plans

Dates

Bibliography

Places

Thès estate, villa of the Peacock

Province

Province Description

Location

Sublocation

Villa

Keywords

Villa Description

Plans

Images

Dates

Bibliography

Places