The Sanctuary of Les Mersans

Currently this group of religious buildings comprises two square temples with galleries and a third rectangular building containing a square cella with a pronaos or vestibule at the entrance. They are aligned to the east between two parallel streets. The trapezium-shaped sacred area is enclosed by a surrounding wall.

The cultic buildings from the first half of the 1st century AD.

In the area just beyond the temples, some traces of occupation around the Augustinian period have been uncovered. In the silt which covers the red sand of the plateau, cavities and post holes have been found.

Under temple 1, the remains have been discovered across too small an area to determine the nature of the structures of which they formed part. The dry-stone base of a wall made of perishable material has been identified, as well as a cobbled area.

At the end of this zone, to the east of these buildings, is a further edifice with a small bonding-course. The 5m square cella is preceded by a 2m long vestibule. A 1m long wooden structure has been extricated from its centre. This building brings to mind, albeit on a smaller scale, the design of classical temples from this same period in Southern France.

The sanctuary from the second half of the 1st century AD.

A major phase of reconstruction to create a larger sacred area seems to have taken place after the Claudian period.

The 6m sided temple 2 is built on a construction whose only base of dry-stone walls has been partially traced along the eastern wall of the later gallery. The cella is raised on a dry-stone base and its walls must have been constructed of wattle and daub. The discovered remains survive to a maximum height of .5m and are coated with paint to create multicoloured panels.

The construction of this temple goes up to the end of Nero's reign or to the beginning of the Flavian period.

A low wall made from a layer of bricks around the edges has been added near the back wall, doubtless to reinforce the structure.

Cultic Practices

In the absence of distinct inscriptions, the organisation of the cults and their respective devotions are difficult to detect. The presence of ditches has raised a number of questions. Of particular note is the filling of several ditches sometimes covered with a layer of stones: the careful arrangements of deposits, the alternation of layers rich in material with barren levels.

One of the ditches has revealed the remains of several animal parts accompanied by knives and glassware, on one vase of which is mentioned the participation of a vergobret at a sacrifice. Deposited beneath some stone rubble, the split skull of a sow and an earthenware pot have been discovered and below them parts of a pig together with a knife.

Alongside numerous pig and cattle bones have been several dog skeletons and the extremities of deer antlers, despite no trace of any other part of that animal.

The ditch which contained the vase mentioning the vergobret has surrendered a small bronze fragment with a primitive representation of a stag's antler with something of a protective character to it.

The Offerings

Hundreds of minor objects together with some 800 coins were recovered from the sanctuary. A number of small bone tokens and glass stoppers have been identified as pieces of a game.

Few votive objects, such as the three miniature bronze axes decorated with crescents (models representing the instrument of sacrifice rather than the sacrifice itself), have been found.

However, substitutes for arms are rare: an iron model of a lance was found in temple 2 and two fossils were discovered in temple 3, one of which was a shark's tooth.

If it's normal to find so few earthenware figurines in the level corresponding to the first half of the 1st century AD, the number of amphora is hardly normal either.

Few precious objects of metal and glass or even from daily life have been found but the number of spring-loaded brooches traditionally associated with the Augustinian era suggest the presence of a secondary deposit.