Gallo-Roman Site of Escolives-Sainte-Camille: Villa, Sanctuary and Cemetery
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- France
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical
- Civilizations
- Roman
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Villa
On this page16 sections
History
The Gallo-Roman Site of Escolives-Sainte-Camille is an archaeological complex in France, at Escolives-Sainte-Camille, centered on a substantial Gallo-Roman villa established near the Via Agrippa during the Roman period. The estate combined residential and agricultural functions and occupied about five hectares. Its history extends from Neolithic settlements and cemeteries through the Roman and Merovingian periods, while later excavations have revealed how the site changed over many centuries.
Neolithic and Bronze Age landscapes
Human activity in the wider environment began in the Neolithic. At Pré de la Planche, Middle Neolithic settlements dating from about 4500 to 2500 BC included post-built structures, enclosure ditches, and burials. The same area contained a Passy-type cemetery, a funerary complex formed from long mounds or elongated enclosures arranged in aligned groups. At least seven monuments and about a dozen burials were identified there.
Bronze Age activity at Pré de la Planche included circular and quadrangular enclosures containing cremations and an inhumation. A separate Bronze Age cemetery at La Cour Barrée was excavated in 1986 before gravel extraction. Later prehistoric activity included a Hallstatt burial and burials from the La Tène period, the later Iron Age phase of central and western Europe. La Tène remains beneath the Roman villa may point to an earlier indigenous farm, although they do not allow its plan to be reconstructed.
The Roman estate beside the Via Agrippa
During the Gallo-Roman period, a large rural estate developed beside the Via Agrippa, the Roman road network linking Gaul with Italy and routes toward Britain. Work on the road began around 19 BC, and its route connected Rome through Lyon and Amiens to the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer. Parts of the ancient route survive in the modern D606 and D249 roads. The Escolives estate included a residential complex and an agricultural sector, reflecting the combined domestic and productive functions of a Gallo-Roman villa.
The villa seems to have been abandoned during the fifth century, when elevated settlements in the area of the present village became preferred places of habitation. Its ruins then entered a new phase as a burial ground. This transformation placed the site within the early medieval world of the Merovingian dynasty, conventionally extending from the fifth to the eighth century.
The Merovingian cemetery and early parish
The cemetery was used from the late sixth to the eighth century. Excavations at Grippe-Soleil and Champ des Tombeaux revealed 354 graves, including earth burials, about thirty stone sarcophagi, and possible wooden coffins. Burials occupied ground north of the ancient buildings and were also inserted directly among the Roman remains. Sarcophagi found near Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul church may represent a separate funerary zone rather than the outer limit of the cemetery.
The place-name Scoliua appears in the liturgical regulations of Aunaire, bishop of Auxerre, dated to 585–592. The reference connects the settlement with one of the oldest parishes in the Yonne. One interpretation proposes that a private oratory within the villa had been recognized as a parish before the end of the sixth century.
Rediscovery and archaeological investigation
In the late nineteenth century, archaeological records mentioned only a small number of Roman tiles from Escolives. Around 1950, the archaeologist and linguist Paul Lebel proposed that the name “Escolives” derived from the Celtic root Scoliva and might refer to a divinized spring. The site came to light in March 1955, when the uprooting of a walnut tree exposed Merovingian burials caught among the roots. Raymond Kapps identified the graves and recognized that they had been placed within the ruins of earlier buildings.
Kapps directed the main excavations from 1955 to 1983, initially working with pupils, local volunteers, and amateur archaeologists. The discovery of sculpted blocks from 1959 onward brought wider attention. Kapps had learned excavation methods from André Leroi-Gourhan, the French archaeologist and prehistorian, and continued to receive his advice. The University of Burgundy and the CNRS, France’s national public research organization, later undertook archaeological, architectural, archaeozoological, and pollen studies at Escolives.
After Kapps died in 1984, Daniel Prost directed the excavations from 1984 to 1989 with assistance from Monique Prost. His work on the Roman spring-capture system between 1985 and 1987 produced major discoveries, and he began organizing the excavation archives at the request of the Ministry of Culture before his death in January 1990. Pascale Laurent subsequently led archival, research, publication, and public interpretation work. Field excavation ended in 1998 as analysis and publication took priority, while research continued toward a comprehensive synthesis.
Investigations also continued in the associated prehistoric areas. Sylvie Defressigne directed the 1986 work at La Cour Barrée, while Pascal Duhamel and Magdalena Midgley directed excavations in the Neolithic funerary area from 1996 to 1999. The commune of Escolives-Sainte-Camille owns the land, and the Société Archéologique d’Escolives is responsible for promotion, interpretation, and public activities. Since the late 1960s, parts of the remains have been re-covered for long-term protection. The site has been included on the supplementary inventory of historic monuments since 1992.
Remains
The surviving complex is organized around the remains of a Gallo-Roman villa, its baths, agricultural buildings, water-supply installation, sculpture, and later cemetery. The villa covered more than four hectares and divided into a residential sector, or pars urbana, and an agricultural sector, or pars rustica. Much of the visible Roman fabric consists of foundations protected from the weather, while other areas have been covered for conservation.
Villa buildings and water supply
Residential sector
The residential buildings were arranged around a large rectangular courtyard measuring about 40 by 20 metres. Corridors served the rooms around it, and the excavated area includes the baths and part of the private buildings. Fragments of painted wall decoration came from the residential rooms. One composition measured about seven metres long and one metre high and came from a reception room overlooking the spring-capture installation.
Baths
The baths began with an early Roman phase and underwent major enlargement or reconstruction in the late third or early fourth century. The complex contained a smaller section that may have served the villa owners and a larger section with a cold pool, a paved separating room, and heated rooms. The larger baths may also have welcomed travellers using the Via Agrippa, about 200 metres away, who may have paid the estate’s owners for bathing.
Heating was provided by a hypocaust, an underfloor system that circulated hot air beneath the floors and sometimes through the walls. The bathing sequence moved through cold, warm, and hot rooms before ending in a sauna. The rooms formed apses around the pools, giving the bath complex a plan adapted to its bathing functions.
Agricultural sector
The agricultural sector included small square buildings, sometimes connected by a partition, aligned along a paved street. Together they formed a U-shaped arrangement, with one wing extending beneath modern houses. An enclosing wall surrounded this productive part of the estate. Pollen, seed, and wood studies indicate an agricultural landscape containing orchards, vineyards, and cereal fields, together with earlier human modification of the environment.
Spring-capture installation
The villa’s water supply came from a spring-capture installation at the Creusot spring. Excavation in the wet environment recovered a boxwood comb, fragments of wooden planks, seeds, and leather shoes dating from the late third and fourth centuries. A leather sandal from the fourth century has been reconstructed, preserving evidence of everyday activity associated with the water installation.
Sculpture and architectural decoration
Reused sanctuary sculpture
The foundations of the baths contain sculpted stone blocks reused from a nearby Gallo-Roman sanctuary, although the original provenance of the sculpture group remains uncertain. The friezes carry acanthus scrolls, two scenes of grape harvesting, and mythological figures including a silenus, a griffin, a sphinx, a sea monster, Apollo, and Cernunnos, a horned deity associated with animals and nature.
The cornices display several registers of Roman ornament, including heart-shaped designs, egg-and-dart patterns, beads, and dentils. Flower-decorated coffers are separated by metopes showing animals, plants, croziers, and human faces. The grape leaves have been interpreted as the “Caesar” vine, suggesting that vines may have been cultivated in the Auxerrois during the second century.
Religious monuments
Other religious remains include two four-deity pillars, monuments whose four faces each bear a divine figure, as well as two votive stelae, a votive altar, and isolated fragments from larger monuments. Together, these pieces represent the religious sculpture associated with the Roman landscape around the villa and its nearby sanctuary.
Funerary stelae
A group of funerary stelae was found against a wall. Most are undecorated, while two display busts. A third depicts a woman wearing three tunics and carrying a towel over her shoulder, providing a human image within the group of Roman funerary monuments.
Merovingian burials
The later cemetery contains graves cut into the ground, stone sarcophagi, and possible wooden coffins. Objects associated with the burials include clothing and personal ornaments, such as brooches, belt-buckle plates, and glass beads. Their presence accompanies the cemetery’s use from the late sixth to the eighth century and illustrates the material customs of the Merovingian period.
