EXCISUM
(Eysses) Commune of Villeneuve-sur-Lot,
Dept. Lot-et-Garonne, France.
An important
way-station situated N of Agen (Aginnum) at the ancient
crossroads of ways linking Bordeaux to Lyon and Bourges to Auch, Eysses produced various finds in the course
of the 19th c., in the neighborhood of a monument
known as the Tour d'Eysses, which is still partially preserved. It consists today of a circular structure (diameter, 11 m; average height, 10 m), its walls an average
of 1.1 m thick. The two dressed faces of these walls
were covered with rows of small masonry, among which
remain the iron clamps which served to hold in place a
marble revetment. The same characteristics may be
seen on the tower of V&ésone in Périgueux. The monument at Eysses belongs, like the latter, to a series of
indigenous temples made up of a cella surrounded by
an ambulatory gallery, erected in the center of a large
esplanade surrounded by a peribolos.
Soundings made since 1970 have revealed remains of
buildings in the neighborhood of this sanctuary, which
date, according to amphorae and coins, to the first
half of the 1st c. A.D. These recent discoveries have
narrowed the proposed date for the temple's construction to the 1st to 2nd c. The furnishings from
earlier excavations (including a Celtic bronze horse's
head) and recent finds, are divided between the museums of Agen and Vileneuve-sur-Lot.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. F. Boudon de Saint Amans,
Essai
sur les antiquités du département du Lot-et-Garonne
(1859) 61ff; Grenier,
Manuel d'arch. gallo-romaine III.
1 449
I.
M. GAUTHIER
