SAXON-SION
Meurthe-et-Moselle, France.
The Côte de Sion, one of the high places (max. 542 m)
of the civitas Leucorum, is ca. 35 km from the capital,
Tullum (Toul). It is a sickle-shaped headland towering
200 m over the Xaintois plain, always a rich agricultural
region. Numerous traces of ancient occupation from prehistory on have been noted. The presence of ramparts,
towers, walls of houses, hypocausts, and sculptures has
often been ascertained, all evidence of dense Gallo-Roman
occupation. At least three Roman roads converge on the
hill. Stray finds have been numerous: an inscription honoring Mercury and Rosmerta (in the Musée Lorrain at
Nancy), a bronze hermaphrodite (at the Epinal museum;
height: 0.5 m), and many coins, some of which have
been collected in a small storage depot on the site. In
1937 a necropolis was investigated which contained both
late (4th c.) Gallo-Roman tombs and barbarian graves.
The cemetery produced many grave-goods. In 1964 upon
the occasion of the straightening of a road and the laying-out of a parking lot, it was possible to establish, thanks
to a precise stratigraphy, the following sequence: a Celtic
settlement, a villa of the Early Empire, an arcaded building of the 2d c., and a concrete floor of the 4th c., which was finally destroyed by grave pits in Christian times.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
E. Salin,
Le Haut Moyen-Age en Lorraine (1939) 33-72
I; M. Toussaint,
Répertoire archéologique Meurthe-et-Moselle (1947) 57-62; L. Deroche,
“Edifices gallo-romaine découverts à Sion,”
Gallia 23 (1965) 242-44
P.
R. BILLORET
