MARGERIDES
Corrèze, France.
Thick, well-preserved limestone walls were discovered about 20 years
ago during plowing at Les Pièces Grandes. Many tiles
and a number of potsherds were also found.
Excavations since 1965 have revealed a large religious
complex. It consists of a fanum, two small subsidiary
structures, and three altars. A surrounding wall ca. 22 m
E of the temple facade leads to a rectangular building.
To the N, some distance from this complex, is a badly
damaged monument with a gallery on its N side. Objects
found include 180 coins, evidence that the site was occupied from the 1st to the 4th c. A.D.; two statues of the
Mother Goddess, one of them mutilated; another mutilated statue, and a bronze statuette resembling the god
Cernunnos.
The cella walls of the fanum were ca. 7 m on a side,
0.48 m thick, and are preserved to an average height of
0.5 m. They were built of an irregular medium-sized
masonry of gray granite; the inner and outer surfaces
were carefully constructed of small stones bonded with
mortar, and were coated with limestone. The walls, now
uneven in height, stand on a thicker foundation that
forms a redan at its base. The floor is a regular checker-work of different types of small stones, most of them
granite, however, and consists of just one layer varying
in thickness from 0.1 to 0.15 m. The stones are laid on
a fairly compact sandy floor.
The gallery walls, 12.8 m on a side, 0.49 m thick, and
standing to an average height of 0.8 to 1 m, are well
preserved on two sides. The inner surface has an irregular medium-sized masonry with a flat facing, while the
outer one consists essentially of regular rows of small
granite blocks 0.09 m square.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
“Informations,”
Gallia 25 (1967) 299-301
PI; 27 (1969) 318
P; 29 (1971) 311-12
I.
A. SIRAT
