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1965 excavations
directed by M. Fleury in front of Notre Dame encountered Gallo-Roman and
Merovingian foundations 8-10 m below today’s street level. Findings
are now displayed in
situ in the 118
m-long Archaeological Crypt beneath the Parvis or park facing the cathedral.
Displays on ancient Lutetia include
bulwarks of a 3rd-4th century AD defensive wall around the Île de la
Cité (fig.1), and 2nd-3rd century Roman-era house foundations with
a hypocaust heating
system.
 Additional Roman-era
artifacts recovered under the choir of Notre-Dame are now displayed at the
Musée national du Moyen Âge at the Hôtel de Cluny, amid
original vaults of the Roman bath frigidarium.
Fig.1: Map showing segments of the 3rd-4th century Roman rampart
around the Île de la Cité, discovered by archaeological excavations
(after Crypte Archéologique). Most notable (aside from the
impressive baths themselves) is the Pilier
des Nautes, a four-sided altar dedicated
to Jupiter and a collection of other Roman and Gallic deities,
erected by a corporation of Parisi river merchants and sailors (nautae
Parisiaci). Five of the eight original carved stones of the
Pilier des nautes
were discovered under Notre-Dame on March
16, 1711, during excavations commissioned by Louis XIV to create an altar
for the archbishops of France. The
Pilier or column consists of four carved blocks of two superimposed
stones each: the Block of Jupiter, the Block of Eight Divinities, the Block
of Four Divinities, and the Block of Dedication (Caillet 1985). While the
Block of Jupiter, restored in 1954, is complete, only the upper half remains
of the three other blocks.
This complex monument
originally lay in a Roman shrine or temple to Jupiter, at the same site where
Notre-Dame was eventually built. The portrayal of both Roman and Gallic deities
on the monument, furthermore, indicates that a form of religious syncretism
existed in Paris by the early 1st century AD. A Latin inscription located
on the Block of Dedication dates the monument to the reign of Emperor Tiberius
(AD 14-37). While some ambiguities surround the abbreviated text of the
inscription, one widely accepted reading is: “under the reign of Tiberius
Caesar Augustus, sailors of the Parisi region have erected, at their own
expense, this monument to Jupiter best and highest.” Two young sailors
with shield and spear are shown on one side of the Block of Dedication.
Besides Jupiter,
Roman gods portrayed on the Pilier des
Nautes include Castor, Pollux, Vulcan,
Mars, and an unknown goddess, possibly Vesta. Gallic deities include the
bull-like Tarvos
Trigaranus, shown with three cranes on his back (fig.2); the horned nature
god Cernunnos, sometimes associated with stags, and Smertrios and Esus, two
bearded Celtic gods each shown chopping a tree with an axe, possibly linking
them with Vulcan.
While the exact
arrangement of the stones in the pillar remains uncertain, one widely accepted
hypothesis by J.-J. Hatt (1960s) has the Block of Eight Divinities (46 x
91 x 96 cm) placed at the bott om due to its larger dimensions. The relatively
small size of the letters on the Block of Dedication, meanwhile, suggests
that this stone was no higher than the second level, with the Block of Jupiter
rested on the third level above the Latin dedication. At top was the Block
of Four Divinities, including the Gallic deities Cernunnos and Smertrios.
According to Hatt, the column could have been between 5-6 meters high. While
Hatt also postulated that the monument was originally located at the forum
of
Lutetia at
the top of Mount Saint Geneviève, recent excavations have demonstrated
that the forum actually dates after the erection of
the Pilier des
Nautes.
Fig.2: Drawing of the relief of the bull-like Celtic diety Tarvos
Trigaranus with three cranes (after Crypte
Archéologique)
More Gallo-Roman
materials from the Paris area may be seen at the Musée Carnavalet,
the Musée du Louvre, the Musée du Cabinet des Medailles, and
the Musée des antiquitiés nationales in Saint-Germain-en-Laye,
which contains Roman materials from throughout France.
References:
Caillet, J.P. 1985.
L’antiquité classique,
le haut moyen âge et Byzance au Musée de
Cluny. Paris, Éditions de la Réunion des
musées nationaux.
Huchard, V. (ed) Archéologica. 2003. “Le
Pilier des Nautes Retrouvé. Histoire d’une Métamorphose.”
Dijon, France. Éditions Faton S.A
This article appears on page 23 of Vol.4 No.2 of Athena
Review.
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