Sentiers du Patrimoine ®

Genainville

Site des Vaux de la Celle

Informations directionnelles

Continuer sur le chemin (vers la gauche) et emprunter le premier chemin à gauche. Continuer tout droit. Longer (de loin) l’étang sur votre gauche. Juste après la maison (sur votre droite), prendre le chemin à droite. Emprunter la première à gauche, la rue du Chat noir. Sur la droite, un sentier mène jusqu’au lavoir du Chat Noir. 


Prochain point :

"Seigneurerie de Chatnoirville"


Prochain point : lat="49.1238689999869" lon="1.7548621.8746314"

The Vaux-de-la-Celle
Gallo-roman ruins

 

 

Archaeologists uncover...


his immense, horseshoe-shaped site with its partially demolished stone arches was long thought locally to be the ruins of a fortified castle, the Château-Bicêtre. Around 1900, a scholarly local, Victor le Ronne, put forward the idea that it was in fact those of an ancient arena. In 1935, the first archeological digs, carried out by architect Pierre Orième, confirmed this theory revealing a structure that Orième labelled Le Pavillon. Evidence of construction has been found over an area at least 400 metres long and 130 metres wide at the base of this small valley. Various digs on the site have enabled the monuments to be dated to around the 2nd century CE. More ancient ruins have also been discovered, such as a cemetery dating from the 5th Century BCE and ceramics dating from the Bronze Age.

 

 

...A set of buildings organised around a sanctuary


This ancient site was built around a sacred water source, more precisely, over an aquifer. Several basins, including a nymphaeum, were installed near the main temple. Some were built with stairs, suggesting they may have been used for curative baths. Near the basins, a 35-metre-long path was paved to a square-plan temple built in bricks and stone, measuring 28 metres a side. Consisting of two cellae (or chambers) surrounded by a walkway gallery, the temple represents a unique example of religious architecture. Each cella housed the effigy of a god, most likely Mercury and his Gallic consort Rosmerta. A semicircular amphitheater measuring 110 metres in diameter was built into the hillside. It had a capacity of 4000 to 8000 spectators. This site also included a few lodgings, indicating it was also a gathering place for surrounding populations. Listed on 9 August 1941 and 23 June 1981, all of these archeological remains are now classed as Historical Monuments.

 

 

 

 



by Expression Nomade