SORDE L'ABBAYE
Landes, France.
Commune of the Pays d'Orthe. (In the Middle Ages it was
known as Sordo or Sordi, later Sordua; the Benedictine
abbey was called Monasterium Sorduense.) In the Roman
period the region was part of Novempopulania, whose
capital was Eauze. Situated upstream from the confluence of the mountain torrents of Pau and Oloron, Sorde
was a crossing-point and settlement from prehistoric
times on.
To the N a rocky spur rises above it, with sites that
go back to the Acheulian period under its S cliff. In the
Bronze Age camps were set up on top of the spur. With
the coming of the Pax Romana the people moved down
into the plain and a settlement grew up on the banks of
the Oloron river close to a road running from Burdigala
(Bordeaux) to Spain. Sorde was probably the first stopping-place on this road after Aquae Tarbellicae (Dax),
the ancient capital of the Tarbelli. The Roman road is
still visible and in use.
The cultivated land in the commune abounds with
Roman and mediaeval potsherds. Two structures have
been partly excavated, one in the area called Barat de
Vin, the other in the abbey close.
1) Barat de Via or de Bin. The site has attracted attention because of some exceptionally well-preserved
walls, 4.5 m high with gateways and windows of stone
and brick masonry, and also because of a mosaic floor
discovered at the beginning of the century. Excavations
in 1964-67, not yet published, uncovered several buildings belonging to a complex that may have served as a
statio: a large courtyard, with a series of rooms on the
NE side opening onto a portico, and a great gallery on
the SW with an openwork rear wall overlooking what
used to be a branch of the river. At the W corner are
baths; their plan is clear and the superstructures are partially preserved. Built apparently in the 3d c., they were
modified in the 4th c. and embellished with stucco and
geometric mosaics. The plan is very like that of the baths
excavated in the abbey of Sorde at Las Hies in Jurançon.
An alveus projecting toward the outside opens into the
frigidarium. The adjacent heated rooms were probably
vaulted. Their hypocausts are well preserved; hot air was
drawn off vertically by means of wall flues. The spacing
and fixing of these flues is recorded by terracotta sockets fastened to the walls with large nails. The caldarium
has two pools along its W wall. The windows lighting the
hot rooms are exceptionally large, and many glass fragments have been found below them. The common use
of window glass in the 4th c. made it possible to improve
lighting without loss of heat.
2) Villa of the abbey (2 km W of Barat de Vin). Mosaics
were found in 1870 and 1957 in the abbey close, and
excavations 1957-64 led to the discovery of a group of
buildings that extend into nearby estates where they cannot be investigated. Three periods are represented. A
bath building, originally freestanding and erected ca. the
3d c., was joined (ca. 5th c.) to the W wing of another
building by a peristyle courtyard. All the mosaic floors
of the latter building can be dated to the 4th c. by coins
of Constantine's reign; one coin was included in the
nucleus of one of the floors. These are decorated with
geometric designs: checkerboards, octagons formed by
two interlaced squares and developed by lozenges. Some
emblema have designs of plants, birds, and canthari.
These finds are in a collection in the abbey. The plan of
the baths is very like that of Barat de Via.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
L. Palustre,
Congrès scientifique de Dax
(1882) pl. LXXI; Dufourcet et al.,
L'Aquitaine historique
et monumentale (1890) 51; J. Lauffray,
Bulletin des
amis de Sorde et du Pays d'Orthe (1962, 1965, 1969);
C. Lacoste, “Les mosaïques gallo-romaines du département des Landes,”
Bulletin de la Société de Borda
(1962); J. Coupry, “Informations,”
Gallia 19 (1961)
396; 21 (1963) 332-35; 23 (1965) 436-39; 25 (1967)
367-69; H. P. Eydoux,
Les terrassiers de l'Histoire (1966).
J. LAUFERAY
