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BAUDECET Hamlet of the commune of Sauvenière, Belgium.

Vicus of the Tungri, on the Bavai-Tongres road, less than 4 km from the town of Gembloux. Systematic excavations have never been undertaken here, but the area abounds in Roman remains. Numerous archaeologists have wanted to identify Baudecet with the Geminiacum of the Antonine Itinerary and the Geminico vico of the Peutinger Table, but the distances given by the two documents are contradictory. it is possible that Geminiacum may be identified with Liberchies.

A short distance from the vicus lies the villa of Sauvenière, excavated in 1898. it is a villa with a portico, of medium importance, whose W wing was enlarged for use as a residence; it has, among others, a room heated by a hypocaust and a cellar. A rectangular annex, which served as a workshop, was found 25 m from the main building.

Two tumuli were excavated 2 km N of the vicus of Baudecet, along the road, in the Bois de Buis. The smaller (height, 1.50 m; diameter, 12 m) yielded the remains of a funeral pyre and a wooden vault with scanty burial objects. The second, three times the size of the first, contained a stone burial vault with a glass urn and two glass bottles as funerary objects. in the same Bois de Buis traces were uncovered of a quadrangular area surrounded by trenches, which may conceal the remains of a small fort of the Late Empire, similar to those of Liberchies, Taviers, and Braives; it has not yet been excavated.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

H. Van de Weerd, Inleiding tot de Gallo-Romeinsche archeologie der Nederlanden (1944) 13-15, 45; J. Martin, Le Pays de Gembloux des origines à l'an mil (1950); F. Ulrix, “Où faut-il situer Geminiacum et Perniacum?” Helinium 3 (1963) 258-64.

S. J. DE LAET

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