MONTBOUY
(Cortrat, La Ronce, and Craon) France.
The commune of Montbouy is situated on the
left bank of the Loing ca. 25 km due N of Briare; the
sites listed above are nearby. The Loing valley was
the principal link between the Loire basin and that of the
Seine and the meeting-point of the territories of the
Senones and the Carnutes (see Pontchevron, St. Maurice
sur Aveyron, Triguères). A day's journey N of the Loire,
Montbouy was probably an essential stage on the Loire-Seine portage route. However, the center of the settlement must have been shifted periodically. In the Early Iron Age it seems to have been 5 km farther S, in the
commune of Ste. Geneviève des Bois, a station on the
transverse road that cuts across the Loing valley and
joins St. Maurice sur Aveyron farther E. A necropolis
with ca. 15 tumuli lies immediately above the slope of
the valley, at the spot called La Ronce. The largest of
these tumuli, a mound 65 m in diameter and 4 m high,
has been excavated since 1953. It contained a tomb,
perhaps a royal one, dating from the early 5th c. B.C.,
protected by a barrow; the ashes were in a Greek bronze
urn, with an iron knife and a glass vase beside it. Two
generations later a second tomb was hollowed out of the
tumulus; the cinerary urn in this case is a stamnos of
bronze wrapped in a cloth held with a golden clasp.
During Iron Age I the settlement of Cortrat, on the
other side of the river ca. 3 km N of Montbouy toward
Montargis, grew in importance. In 1965 a cemetery was
discovered; in it were ca. 15 flat tombs containing seven
swords, a spear, some torques, bracelets, and fibulas.
Excavations in 1958-62 on the same site had unearthed
a cemetery dating from late antiquity that consisted of
39 trench and cist tombs; beside the bodies were vases
of pottery or glass and a variety of jewelry: necklaces
made of beads of amber, coral, or glass paste; a gold
ring; fibulas of various types—the most remarkable are
silver and bell-shaped. Also noteworthy, in a woman's
tomb, is the presence of a wooden casket and a bronze
basin. It has been shown that these grave gifts are characteristic of the tombs of the Zetes, barbarian auxiliaries
who were part of the Roman army in the 4th c. whose
tombs are usually to be found in Artois and Picardy.
The Cortrat cemetery is dated by a follis of Valentinian
I; the bell- and kidney-shaped fibulae of Cortrat are of
Pannonian origin, which suggests that the detachment
garrisoned here in the late 4th c. was recruited in Central
Europe. Cortrat retained its importance throughout the
Early Middle Ages; the tympanum in its church is decorated with a remarkable quasi-abstract composition of uncertain date.
Craon, nearer the present-day village of Montbouy
than the previous sites, is situated on the river itself. The
name Craon may be derived from Carantomagus. The
adjective Carantos appears in many Celtic hydronyms,
the best known being Charente, and implies that the
waters are sacred. The waters in question here belong to
a spring which rises in the Loing valley and which became part of an architectural complex in the Imperial period. The spring still flows into a round basin 7 m wide and 1.6 m deep, with a black and white mosaic floor; to
avoid clogging, the catchment flows into a section of the
basin separated from the rest by two radial walls. The
remainder of the basin served as a pool; three steps lead
down to it. Around this pool was an octagonal wall 25
m in diameter, which in turn was enclosed by a rectangular portico (71 x 61 m). Water from the pool flowed
into two channels oriented to E and W respectively. The
first (5 m wide) turns N after leaving the octagonal
building and pipes the water into a second pool outside
the rectangular wall. This pool was quadrangular and
was protected by a building of the same shape. The
channel to the W, partly underground, supplied water
to baths; two cold pools have been found.
The sacred character of these structures is shown by
the many ex-votos found on the site. In 1861 some
wooden statues were discovered, apparently in the pool
into which the spring flowed. Similar to those found in
recent years at the sources of the Seine and at Chamalières in the Puy de Dôme, they are carved of oak and
have no arms or legs. Comparison with ex-votos found
at the sites just mentioned dates them in the 1st c. A.D.
In the 2d c. the wooden ex-votos were replaced by terracotta statuettes, some of them representing Venus. Coins found here range from the Augustan era to that of Constantine.
Besides this main temple, two other important architectural complexes have been located at Craon, probably also sanctuaries. The first, now covered by a sand-pit, had been noted in 1862. Apparently it was a square temple with a double surrounding wall (32.7 x 27.2 m) with
the cella (14 x 12.5 m). A round temple with a triple
concentric surrounding wall, whose greatest diameter was
90 m, has also been found.
The demi-amphitheater of Chennevières is connected
with the sanctuary, although it is relatively far away. Its
elliptical arena measures 48.3 (E-W) by 31.8 m; one-third of its S side is dominated by a cavea built against
a small hill. Around the arena is a wall that forms a
podium 2.7 m high. This wall has three gateways, placed
at the free ends of the axes. Opposite the N gate is a
small rectangular room hollowed out below the cavea;
it looks out underneath the arena. The cavea had a radius
of 28 m, its tiers being built flush with the hillside; however, it is impossible to tell to what extent the ground was cleared or filled in. Apparently some seats were still in situ in the middle of the 18th c. and an early 19th c.
archaeologist rearranged 19 tiers into two maeniana. On
the outside, the high ground supporting the cavea is surrounded by a wall that widens out at the base and is matched on the exterior by a second concentric wall. The two walls were separated by a drainage ditch. It is
clear from some holes in the stonework that scaffolding
holding up the upper gallery of the cavea was supported
on these walls, as at Argentomagus and Champlieu. The
whole complex is carefully built of a core of mortared
rubble faced with small stones, with iron joints but no
layers of brick, which justifies dating it well toward the
end of the 1st or the beginning of the 2d c.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chennevières: A. Grenier,
Manuel
d'archéologie gallo-romaine III, 2 (1958) Ludi et Circenses, 921-24; La Ronce: “Tumulus de la Ronce,”
Gallia 17, 2 (1959) 317-22; M. Dauvois,
Rev. Arch. de l'est et du Centre Est 11, 3 (1960) 177-203; A. Nouel,
A la Recherche des Civilisations disparues (1964); Craon:
Grenier,
Manuel IV, 2 (1960) Villes d'eaux et sanctuaires de l'eaux, 730-33; Cortrat: A. France Lanord,
RA 1 (1963) 15-36.
G. C. PICARD