dAf 81
GARMY Pierre, MONTIEL Martial
Le quartier antique des Bénédictins à Nîmes (Gard)
Découvertes anciennes et fouilles 1966-1992
The results of the excavation, undertaken in Nîmes from1966 to 1992, of the sites of the Marseillaise, the Villégiales des Bénédictins, the Hesperides and the Fontaine des Bénédictins, make it possible to follow the evolution of the Bénédictins district from the neolithic to the present day. Near a pre-roman oppidum, on the slopes of mount Cavalier, this area was occupied from the end of the sixth century BC later finding itself at the heart of the old town after construction of the city-wall during Augustus reign. No longer an urban area from the second century AD onwards, it remained rural until the eighteenth century.
Organised according to a framework which respected the relief, with bath water supply system and drainage, this district contained a group of houses whose plans, construction details, decoration and domestic finds are studied both individually and from a socio-economic point of view.
Abstract
Abstract
Introduction
The district known as the “Bénédictins” is east of the jardin de
1 Geology and first settlement
Archaeological features are to be found on all soil types encountered in this area. Essentially, the subsoil of the slope comprises several superimposed formations directly under the human activity. The subsoil encountered by neolithic farmers is a heterogeneous mosaic. The study and the reconstitution of the late prehistoric countryside shows a certain ressemblance to the modern garrigues The earliest human activity on the slopes dates from the Neolithic period. The fragile balance of the ecosytem is disturbed before there is permanent occupation at the beginning of the Iron Age. Human occupation of the Bénédictins from the end of the sixth century BC follows a rhythm of management of space where habitat and agriculture are entwined. The construction of a city wall in the fourth century BC completes a period of expansion and organisation of the town on the plain. Thereafter the Bénédictins is intra muros, though there are no buildings, only terrassed fields, between the end of the fifth century and the middle of the second century BC. At this time the habitat is at the foothills and on the plain. The pre-Roman town was therefore a lowland grouped habitat, which is unique in the region. New building on the slopes from the second century BC indicates a renewed interest for the slopes near the plain, to the disadvantage of the formerly cultivated areas.
2 Discoveries from the Roman period
Each of these four major archaeological excavations is fully published. The house known as
3 The Houses
Taken as a whole the civil architecture of the Bénédictins district is analysed on two levels. Firstly, the major constructions are characterised by the material used and the construction details, secondly, traditional sources, evolution and borrowings are disentangled from the Roman architecture. The pavements reveal social status and artistic ambition. Their study provides corroboration as well as begging some questions about the history of mosaics in Roman Gaul. Detailed study of the wall decoration shows a relationship to work observed in Nîmes and in the Narbonne region, which is to say the influence of the 4th style from the middle of the first century AD as well as the imitation marble fashion of the beginning of the second century AD. The town has an important place in the agricultural economy because of the presence of market-gardens, vineyards and urban orchards, indeed one of the houses excavated had a domestic garden. All the sculptures uncovered are in local limestone and are small except for a statue whose portable head seems likely to represent Antonia Minor. The corpus of inscriptions comprises three girdles of Hermes and examples of domestic ritual addressed to the Genius of the master or the Iuno of the mistress. So far as the luxury and elaboration of the houses is concerned, social hierarchy is reflected in the organisation on the slope, the altimetric levels and the public waterworks. The phenomenon of differential reaction to urban centres is also a factor.
The urbanisation of the south-eastern slope of mount Cavalier is later than that of the southern slope or the plain, already occupied at the beginning of the Christian era. The rhythm increases no doubt because of moderate urban pressure. The general impression is that of an attempt at a planned town handicapped by the topography and probably by the existence of previous occupations. The importance of water in the creation and development of urban centres around the mediterranean basin is well known. Nimes is not an exception. Apart from water-courses and wells, the emphasis is on two measures hitherto little studied in Nîmes, soil drainage of the slopes and the organisation of a major part of the water distribution system. The installation of a pipe near the end of the second quarter of the first century AD bringing water from Uzès, was advantageous to buildings under the datum level of the castellum, clearly influencing later urban organisation.
5 From late antiquity until the present day
Human occupation which began at the end of the second century BC is difficult to reconstitute. It comprised farming and gardening or, more likely, untended land given occasional attention. There is only occasional and late evidence for the systematic planting of urban waste ground which increases in area from the end of the fourth century. From the Middle-Ages until about 1680, the district, almost untouched by town development, keeps its rural character, though there is evidence for the operation of lime-kilns. The presence of houses remains the exception until the end of the seventeeth century. The district is largely untouched by the urban development caused by the construction of both de Rohan’s defensive wall and the nearby citadel. Until the mid-nineteenth century, buildings are principally on the edge of roads, and even then their presence is not systematic, gardens being the dominant feature.
Conclusion
From the early Roman Empire the district is distinct from its neighbours, particularly to the south and the west where it is adjacent to the central monumental buildings. Here, the presence of houses defines the structure of the town, even though there is a clear variation in the quality of the buildings and the social status of their inhabitants. This book aims to contribute to a renewal of interest in the urban house which is too rarely studied. In this volume the development of urban history is studied over a long period, from late prehistory to modern times.
