MAUBEUGE
Nord, France.
In the arrondissement of Avesnes; chief town in the canton. The ancient site of Maubeuge, now a sizable industrial city on the Sambre, was farther N on the Roman road from
Bavai to Trèves; the road has been investigated and can
still be seen E of the Meubeuge-Mons road at the spot
known as Le Petit Camp. A villa at Le Bois Brûlé has
also been excavated: five corner rooms with a gallery
have been uncovered as well as a room with a hypocaust,
a little farther back. The rooms have been identified as a
forge, a kitchen, and a workshop. It is uncertain as yet
whether the complex was a villa or a rural vicus. The objects found there—a fibula with an enameled design,
coins, pottery, Roman farm tools—are now in the city
museum. Ever since the early 18th c. many chance finds
have been made, generally in the suburb of Mons,
through which runs the Roman road from Bavai to
Trèves. Many coins have been found at the S end of the
forest; in fact, the Roman road is known locally as the
road of the coins.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dictionnaire archéologique de la Gaule
II (1878) 171; Jennepin,
Histoire de Maubeuge, 3 vols.
(1879); C. Croix,
L'Avesnois préhistorique, gaulois,
gallo-romain et franc (1956); E. Will, “Informations
archéologiques,”
Gallia 25, 2 (1967) 195; “L'activité archéologique dans la circonscription des Antiquités historiques des régions Nord et Picardie,”
Revue du Nord 195 (1967) 773.
P. LEMAN
