MAUVES
Loire Atlantique, France.
The site,
on a hill overlooking the Loire and covering an area of
more than 20 ha, marks a small Gallo-Roman city that
was inhabited from the 1st to the 4th c. A.D.
A number of luxurious villas has been uncovered, and
the richness of the materials used to decorate the walls
and floors (green, pink, and white marble, painted walls
and stucco, mosaics) is evidence of the wealth of the
inhabitants. In the 19th c. the remains of a theater were
found on the city's N boundary. It is built, not on a slope
as recommended in the Classical treaties, but on the top
of the Coteau de Mauves overlooking the Loire and the
surrounding countryside. The semicircular wall is built of
mortared rubble faced with small blocks and having iron
joints; it consists of broken sections placed end to end
to form a series of 20 oblique walls. The diameter of the
theater at the level of the stage wall is 44.2 m. The seats
and the actual stage must have been of wood, since no
traces of them have been found.
Some of the finds made in the early excavations are
housed in the Musée de Nantes, more recent ones are for
the most part at the Touring Club de France in Nantes.
M. PETIT
