PEYRIAC-DE-MER
(Le Moulin) Aude, France.
A small pre-Roman trading post S of Narbonne on
the edge of the Bages-Sigean lagoon—Strabo's Narbonities (4.1.6) and Mela's Rubresus (2.5.6)—in a region rich in salt marshes. The exploitation of these marshes, as evidenced by an epitaph from the Roman
period (
CIL XII, 5360), seems to have been the principal
activity of the settlement. Founded in the 6th c. B.C.
and held by the Elisyces, it was destroyed and abandoned toward the end of the 3d c. B.C. The settlement was then transferred to the nearby peninsula of Le Doul, which had been occupied since the Bronze Age.
The only architectural remains uncovered on the site
of the port (ca. 1 ha) are some low foundations dating
from the last occupation period. They belonged to houses
of rustic masonry, generally consisting of two or three
rooms. The streets, averaging 4 m in width crossed at
right angles. The comparative regularity of the plan,
combined with the finding of graffiti in Greek characters,
suggest that the town was to some extent hellenized. A
variety of objects found on the site are now in an excavation depot at Peyriac-de-Mer. They show continuous
trade with the Greeks of Marseille and especially those
of Ampurias; through the latter the trading posts had
links with the Punic centers on the E coast of Spain.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Y. Solier & H. Fabre, “L'oppidum du
Moulin à Peyriac-de-Mer, fouilles 1966-1967-1968,”
Bulletin de la Société d'Études Scientifiques de l'Aude 69
(1969) 69-106.
Y. SOLIER
