BARON-SUR-ODON
Calvados, France.
From
Aregenua, the chief city of the Viducasses, a road cut
through the chief city of the Baiocasses toward the English Channel. it can be recognized in the Chemin Haussé,
which starts from Vieux and crosses the road from Caen
at Evrecy at La Croix des Filandriers.
Substructures have been excavated 200 m from this
road, in the commune of Baron-sur-Odon. The building
stood on a hill overlooking, to the SE, a small valley
adjoining the site of Vieux. It had 12 sides and a gallery
running around an open esplanade. The first wall enclosed a polygonal area 22 m in diameter; a second wall
ran exactly parallel with it, forming a gallery 2 m wide.
Fragments of a third vertical structure indicate a third
surrounding wall, more or less concentric with the other
two, and making a corridor 3.5 m wide.
This building has been called “a somewhat unusual
type of sanctuary.” A large quantity of small bronze rings
were found in the excavations, which may be ex-votos,
suggesting that the monument is a temple—a hypothesis
that seems fairly well grounded. Polygonal sanctuaries
have been found in England: Silchester (Hampshire)
has a six-sided temple whose greatest diameter is 20 m,
and at Chewstoke (Somerset) there is a little octagonal Roman temple of the end of the 3d c. Polygonal
temples have also been found in Germany: Mainz has an
octagonal temple 25 m in diameter with two surrounding
walls 4 m apart, while Pfuenz has an irregular 13-sided
temple as much as 50 m in diameter. Such polygonal
temples are rarer in France, though a 7-sided sanctuary
10 m in diameter has been found at Mur-en-Carentois
(Morbihan, Brittany). The geographical position of the
Baron-sur-Odon monument, however, matches that of
sanctuaries found in Normandy, which are usually set on
high ground, near a spring and not far from a major
highway. The 12-sided sanctuary of Baron-sur-Odon stands
almost at the top of a slope; there is a well at the spot
known as La Maison Blanche a few hundred m toward
Evrecy, and a Roman road passes 200 m to the E.
Judging from the pottery, the temple seems to have
flourished in the 2d and 3d c. A.D., but the site was occupied at an earlier period: several articles from iron Age
III have been found in the NE section of the temple cella.
A rectangular complex 25 by 13 m has been uncovered
E of the 12-sided monument, some 24 m from the third
surrounding wall. it is roughly at right angles to the road
bordering the monument and stands somewhat apart from
the latter, looking toward the road. its purpose has not
yet been determined.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gosselin, “Fouilles aux environs de la
côte 112 le long de la voie romaine partant de Vieux,”
Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie 52
(1952-54) 284; 54 (1957-58) 618; 55 (1959-60) 176, 389; 56 (1961-62) 588, 766.
C. PILET
