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