ELEWIJT
Belgium.
A Gallo-Roman vicus N
of the civitas Nerviorum on the Namur-Baudecet-Rumst
road. It is on the boundary between the sandy Campine
province and the more fertile Brabant, at the spot called
Zwijnbeer, a hill to the N of the modern village. Excavations show that the vicus covered an area of some
27 ha. Important finds of Roman antiquity have been
made since the 17th c. and many amateurs have carried
out scattered excavations. An undisturbed section of the
vicus was systematically excavated in 1947-53.
There were three periods of occupation. The earliest
clue is the mark of a rectilinear ditch, which has been
traced over 60 m. Its profile is V-shaped, as is characteristic of Roman camps. This camp (Augustan?) was
just a temporary one, and the ditch was very soon filled
in. The vicus started to grow during the reign of Claudius when a large part of the road network of N Gallia
was built. At that time Elewijt was linked by road to the
vicus of Asse and also to Bavai. It was half rural and
half industrial. Traces of an ironworks have been found
there, along with a potter's kiln that produced everyday
pottery in the local tradition. In the 1st c. A.D. the buildings were still of wood and of wattle and daub. They
were gradually replaced by stone structures, of which a
cellar still remains. It was at that time, no doubt, that
a sanctuary was built, dedicated to a divinity that was
patron of horses (this same divinity had another sanctuary at Asse). At Elewijt, as at Asse, a whole series
of statuettes of horses was found, made of white Allier
pottery. The thymiaterion used in this sanctuary was
also discovered, and part of the foundations of the structure may have been unearthed in the course of excavation. Potsherds of terra sigillata, of which a great many
have been found, show that the vicus had trade links
with S and central Gallia as well as with the E and the
Rhineland.
Toward the end of the 2d c. the settlement was almost
completely destroyed. It was rebuilt on an entirely different plan: thereafter the houses were oriented on a
NW-SE axis. A large building, erected in the middle of
the vicus, had several rooms, heated by hypocaust and
walls decorated with friezes. A number of wells date
from this period. It is not known how the vicus disappeared. It may be that it was ravaged during the invasions of the second half of the 3d c. In any case there
are few traces of the 4th c. In the 19th c. the necropolis
of the vicus was located at the section called Heidendries,
but little is known about it.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. Vaes & I. Mertens,
La céramique
gallo-romaine en terre sigillée d'Elewijt (1953); J. Mertens, “De Romeinse Vicus te Elewijt,”
Handelingen van
de Kring voor Oudheidkunde van Mechelen 47 (1953)
21-62
PI; M. Desittere,
Bibliografisch repertorium der
oudheidkundige vondsten in Brabant (1963) 45-48.
S. J. DE LAET
