The urbanization of a quarter of Nîmes from Antiquity to the present day

On line since September 14, 2009 · Updated September 14, 2009

The first results of the excavations, in the quarter of the Faubourg des Prêcheurs (Preachers) give us more precise information about a sector of the town little explored previously. Situated to the north of the town centre, it was marked early on (from the first centuries AD) by an important urbanization and the construction of a large public building. A demographic impulse linked to the installation of a monastery during the Middle Ages, illustrate the increasing interest in this new suburb later linked to the town by a modern surrounding wall.

The context of the discovery

The creation of a section of a road as well as the building of a student hall and municipal housing were at the origin of a prescription of evaluation in September 2007. Following the demolition of residential buildings over an area of 2,700m2, a dense occupation of the sector from the 1st century AD up to modern times was testified. The excavation campaign, from September 2008 to January 2009, will enable the identification of the type of human occupation (habitation, agricultural or craft activities) and the successive types of urbanization of the quarter (ancient urban network, creation of the suburb and outline of the modern enclosure), thus updating our knowledge of this urban sector.

The Pre-Roman campaign

The terrain, at the bottom of a slope in a small natural humid valley, does not seem to have attracted occupation or cultivation before the beginning of our era. No previous construction has been found which could confirm the rural status of this sector which was mainly agricultural, probably crossed until a late period by a stream, and scattered with traces of plantations, (vines, bushes).

In the Roman town: public or private buildings?

Buildings from the 1st-3rd centuries AD have been found in the western half of the site. Doubtless built as early as the Augustan period, the only remains are some severely levelled walls. From the following occupation about ten floors (terrazzo) remain, two of which are mosaics with geometric patterns, the materials of the walls having often been reused.
Modern and contemporary conversions (17th-20th centuries) damaged ancient remains. The building of several cellars thus destroyed many Roman floors which had survived until then. A long gallery encircling large decorated rooms seem to be more characteristic of a public place rather than a private domus, but the poor state of conservation and the rarity of the remains do not allow us to state today the nature and the function of the places.
To the east, the occupation is different and has revealed no solid construction, except on the south limit where a long corridor with mosaics appears.
This built-up sector is part, with previous constructions and a probable road to the east, of the delimitation of an open zone doubtless reserved for spaces for planting.

Traces of artisans

After the abandon of the Roman buildings, a craft activity linked to the treatment of metals was developed locally. Two forges, partly preserved, were discovered above antique floors that they sometimes damaged. No other construction of this period has been identified. Only two isolated graves, of uncertain date, have been found.

The 1688 rampart

At the end of the 17th century Louis XIV demanded that the town build a rampart linking the citadel to the rest of the urban fortifications. The faubourg des Prêcheurs was then included in the urban perimeter by a new enclosing wall part of which is inside the archaeological site.