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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

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