This map allows you to create layers according to eras. Which show the borders, the fortifications, the suburbs, the cemeteries, the public places, those of worship, power, leisure, the evolution of the beds and arms of the Somme, the road axes…
The interactive atlas does not overlap the current borders of Amiens Métropole. “We work within a radius of 17 kilometers around Amienscontinues the archaeologist. Because it is the distance that a man could travel in one day in a round trip, and therefore the radius of the main human interactions in a territory..
WHERE DOES THE DATA COME FROM?
Preventive archeology – to be differentiated from planned archaeology, which targets a rich deposit, sometimes over a long period, as in Boves or Renancourt – intervenes upstream of territorial planning programs in order to recover the underlying information. -soil before their destruction. Born in the 1970s, it is now systematized.
On Amiens territory, Inrap, the “memory of the city” as Richard Jonvel puts it, for a long time managed the issue alone. Then Amiens Métropole also set up a preventive archeology team in 2011. Added to the results of planned excavations, the information thus collected has exploded in around forty years.
But archeology existed long before. Without even mentioning the work of the “father of archaeology”, Jacques Boucher de Perthes from Abbeville, other research had already shed light on Amiens’ past. Today they feed this brand new GIS, “notably the Charle-Pinsard collection, which dates from the end of the 19the century and early 20th centurye and is compiled in 70 volumes in the library archives, or the works of François Vassel, architect of the Reconstruction to whom we owe the knowledge of the grid of Gallo-Roman Amiens”.
But why start with this interactive map today? On the one hand, because the tools allow it. On the other hand, “because a whole generation of archaeologists is retiring. We must therefore save the information. This card includes notices that retirees can continue to provide ».
HOW IT WORKS ?
The map superimposes the periods, but also the excavation sites, which are therefore accompanied by a notice. Ultimately, all the excavations carried out over the decades should be synthesized there. At least, in the general public version. The one intended for researchers is intended to be more complete and technical.
It is this general public version that amiens.fr makes available. After clicking on the “interactive map” tab, just look for the “trowel” symbol. Three options – which can be superposed – are then available: the excavation sites accompanied by their notices, the map of Amiens in the Gallo-Roman era (from Samarobriva, therefore) and that of Amiens in the Middle Ages.
“We chose Antiquity and the Middle Ages because they are the best documented periods at presentexplains Richard Jonvel. We compile the data and give it to GIS colleagues who put it online”. Philosophy : “Science open to everyone, to make the past accessible, to give an idea of the scale of the city, of its evolution”.
The two cards, the dedicated specialist version and the general public version, will continue to evolve as discoveries are made. In the meantime, we can already see the Somme before the canals, the thermal baths, the ancient theater, the two medieval walls, the old city gate in the Saint-Pierre district… And a host of other surprises resurfaced from pass.
Jean-Christophe Fouquet
