RIBEMONT SUR ANCRE
Somme, France.
Site in the areas known as Le Champ Crezette and Le
Boeuf d'Or, ca. 20 km E of Amiens and a little S of
the road from Amiens to Bavay through Albert, Bapaume, and Cambrai.
The existence of buildings was first discovered by
aerial photography; they were thought to be a large
Roman villa and its dependencies, similar to ca. 600
others in Picardy located from the air. The photographs
showed three rectangular courtyards arranged in a row,
with buildings set symmetrically on either side. Excavation revealed that the buildings E of the N courtyard
were heated by hypocaust and had painted walls, an indication of luxury also found in what was believed to be
the main residential building; it had painted walls, marble plaques, and sculptured decoration. These finds, in
rural villas, were in fact part of a great rural sanctuary,
as the discovery of the square double plan of a fanum
or temple later confirmed.
The cella, 16.75 m on a side, stood on a podium at
least 2 m high. The open space around the podium was
surrounded by a wall, also square, on the SE side of
which a square niche impinging on the podium was later
added. Here a small place of worship was set up (three
rectangular blocks, perhaps an altar base) exactly on the
axis of the cella, after the temple was destroyed in the
Late Empire. The temple was decorated with carvings,
had Corinthian capitals, engaged columns, a monumental
entrance, and walls painted with floral designs. These remains date from an elaborate restoration in the Severan
period. Before that the site seems to have been deserted
for some time, as evidenced by an incineration tomb
found in the niche area. It is still uncertain to which
divinity the temple was dedicated: neither the decorative
carving nor even the epigraphic evidence (a plaque, of
which there are three copies, with the legend MIN/FER/
QUE) provide a definitive answer.
The temple is merely the N section of the whole complex; to the S and on the same axis were a theater, later
made into an amphitheater-theater, and farther S, at the
edge of the Ribemont territory, an area containing remains of hypocausts. If baths are identified in this area
the comparison with Champlieu will be evidence in itself.
Excavation has confirmed the identical chronology of
temple and theater. It still remains to be proved that they
date from the last years of independence, but the major
foundation work certainly began under Nero and was
followed immediately by a series of partial modifications.
The change to amphitheater-theater may possibly date
from Marcus Aurelius. The oval arena that was added
is similar in dimensions to the amphitheater-theaters of
Soissons, Augst, and Vieux (internal axis of arena ca.
10 m). The plan of the complex based on the archaeological evidence has been strikingly confirmed by more aerial photographs.
The original purpose of this group of buildings is still
debated. Was it a religious complex built for a people
whose city has not yet been located, or one of the rural
fora that took over from the coaciliabula, the meeting
places of the Gallic tribes erected on their territorial
boundaries? The discovery of a trench filled with objects
from Iron Age III, the relatively early date of the first
construction, and the absence of any Roman settlement
in the immediate vicinity all argue in favor of the latter
hypothesis, but decisive proof has yet to be found that
the complex was first built in the Gallic period.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. Agache, “Archéologie aérienne de la
Somme,”
Bull. Soc. Préhist. du Nord 6 (1964)
I; id. et al., “Les villas gallo-romaines de ha Somme, aperçu préliminaire,”
Revue du Nord 47 (1965) 541-76
P; id., “Détection aérienne des vestiges protohistoriques, gallo-romains et médievaux,”
Bull. Soc. Préhist. du Nord 7 (1970) 178-80, 184-86
I; A. Ferdière, “Première campagne de fouilles
dans la villa gallo-romaine de Ribemont-sur-Ancre,”
Revue du Nord 48 (1966) 539-43
P; E. Will,
Gallia 27 (1969)
228-31
I; J. L. Cadoux & J. L. Massy, “Ribemont sur
Ancre: Etudes,”
Revue du Nord 52 (1970) 469-511
PI;
id., “Le sanctuaire gallo-romain de Ribemont sur Ancre
(Somme),”
Bull. Soc. des Antiquaires de Picardie (1971)
43-70; id., “Les premières campagnes de fouilles sur le
théâtre gallo-romain de Ribemont sur Ancre,” ibid.
(1972) 448-72; C. Pietri,
Gallia 29 (1971) 231-32
I.
P. LEMAN
