TINTIGNAC
Corrèze, France.
Called Quintinhac in the 13th c., Tintignac is in the commune of
Naves. Excavations in the 1840s and especially in 1884
have produced a fairly clear but still incomplete picture
of the site and its complex of important buildings: the
theater, temple, and the so-called shops (which appear
to have been burned). Coins found on the site cover the
period from Augustus to Constantine; it is possible, however, that it was occupied before the Roman conquest.
The theater faced SE and stood on a slope (67.5
m along its axis, 85 m wide). Higher up and on the
same axis is another building the inner wall of which
impinges on the cavea of the theater. At each end of
this wall is a nearly square pavilion. The outer wall,
consisting of a gallery with 10 semicircular and two rectangular niches, all richly decorated, runs in a semicircle
around a courtyard paved with marble. In the center of
the outer wall is another square pavilion. Although this
monument has been taken to be a temple, where each
of the niches formerly held the statue of a divinity, such
a plan is extremely unusual, the only other example
known being the temple overlooking the theater at Vienne.
A building 74 m long has been uncovered a few m NE
of the temple and on the same level: a large rectangular
hall with an opening, in the middle of the wall opposite
the entrance, into a square pavilion with semicircular
apses on each side. The hall is flanked by two rectangular
pavilions. These are probably the three main temples of
a sanctuary similar to those at La Roche, near Poitiers,
and Le Vieil-Evreux.
The so-called shops, some 30 m to the NW, are housed
in a rectangular building with two courtyards. The inner
one contains two small square aediculae, the outer one
is surrounded by a gallery
These buildings, similarly oriented, are part of a complex that may be compared to such centers as Sanxay and Chassenon.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
P. Lalande, “Ruines de Tintignac, Corrèze,”
Bull. Soc. Scient. Hist. et Archéo. de la Corrèze 7 (1885) 632-713; V. Forot,
Les ruines gallo-romaines de
Tintignac (1905); Grenier,
Manuel IV, 2 (1960) 582-86.
G. LINTZ
