6533b822fe1ef96bd127de0b

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Alésia, forme urbaine et topographie religieuse. L’apport des prospections et des fouilles récentes

subject

description

Thanks to geophysical, electric and especially magnetic survey, carried out since 2008 within the programme "Sanctuaires d’Alésia", it has been possible to study the link between the different cult sites and the urban grid/network, to find new temples and to settle more precisely those which were only known by aerial photography. From these new data, a double synthesis plan has been drawn. The first one gives a technical interpretation, the second one a structural and archaeological interpretation of the agglomeration. The contribution of survey and of recent excavations (temples at la Croix Saint-Charles and at En Surelot) highlights the early phases of Apollo Moritasgus’s sanctuary in connection with the beginnings of the agglomeration (from Late La Tene to the Julio-Claudian period) but also the existence of a vast empty space, 5 ha long, at En Surelot. This area is lined with cult buildings that may constitute a "religious quarter" the type of which is already known in Roman Gaul.