The European Archeology Days are this weekend everywhere in France. In Brittany, you can discover the Gallo-Roman villa of Quiou in the Côtes d’Armor, the megalithic site of the menhirs of Monteneuf in Morbihan or the excavation site of the Hôtel-Dieu in Rennes.
France Bleu Armorique Hello, Michel Baillieu.
Michael Baillieu Good morning.
France Bleu Armorique INRAP is leading the excavations at the Hôtel-Dieu in Rennes. Is this a big project for you and your teams?
Michael Baillieu Yes quite. It is quite exceptional to have more than 5,000 square meters in an urban context, in the middle of the city, where the city is rebuilding itself. This is the case at the Hôtel-Dieu. And this excavation follows two other excavations carried out in 2016 and then in 2022. Still in this same district, which will allow us to have a much more complete vision of this Gallo-Roman district.
France Bleu Armorique And there, in these excavations that you carried out, it is an ancient city center that we discovered.
Michael Baillieu We discovered neighborhoods, in particular a complete block which is organized around roads which intersect at right angles in East-West and North-South, what we call a cardo and a decumanus and which organize, which structure the interior of a block made of craft shops, houses, and then other types of structures.
France Bleu Armorique Yes, you also found a large necropolis on this site of the Hôtel-Dieu excavations.
Michael Baillieu So the necropolis is what happened afterwards, at the end of the Late Empire, when the district was in decline. But before that, we have neighborhoods, houses, living quarters. These are richly endowed houses, therefore houses of notables of the time. And above all we have, it is a rather exceptional discovery, the proof now that we have a sanctuary, a large sanctuary which is built around a courtyard closed by a wall which goes quite high in elevation. And so this courtyard makes it possible to accommodate the entire population and inside, obviously, a temple of which we only have a few elements. But we know that we have a large civil sanctuary and that it was erected at the beginning of the, at the beginning of the first or at least during the first century AD.
France Bleu Armorique And this sanctuary, precisely, as you continue your research, can you still find elements that will allow you to know more?
Michael Baillieu So we are going to refine the dating, refine a certain number of things. We have the main elements, but we obviously have the difficulty of being in the city center with modern constructions which obscure the overall vision of the sanctuary. But of course, we will refine the elements concerning this sanctuary. And regarding the neighborhood as a whole.
France Bleu Armorique Have you also found objects in addition to the traces of the buildings?
Michael Baillieu So we have dating elements in the soils, in the layers which constitute either the soils or the embankments which allow us to chronologically place the arrival of this or that building or on the contrary its abandonment. And then we have in the necropolis which is made up of around 600 tombs this year, we have a little less than 10% of the tombs which are accompanied by furniture, in particular female tombs. And these elements are obviously very good dating elements which allow us to refine the chronology of the different occupations.
France Bleu Armorique And last question Michel Baillieu, you will welcome the public this weekend on the site of the Hôtel Dieu without reservation in Rennes. What will you offer for those who come to see you?
Michael Baillieu There, we will actually welcome the public with guided tours. Archaeologists will be stationed on the site to welcome people and give them as many explanations as possible depending on where they are located, on the basis of plans and an adapted speech. And we will have certain somewhat specific workshops to talk about professions, specificities, archeology, how we work.
