ROQUEMAURE
Locality of La Barre, Gard, France.
The oppidum of La Barre overlooks the town
from the N. Roquemaure was established during the second half of the 6th c. B.C. Then the dwellings occupied
the rather steep S slope and the summit of a long hill
orientated E-W. To the N there juts a rocky hillock, also
inhabited in the same period. The sheer cliffs to the N
and to the E and the steep declivity to the W provided
adequate natural defenses. On the S slope, where the settlement was densest, the rock was cut out to permit the
construction of huts. The Rhône flowed at the very foot
of the oppidum, which formed a sort of cove suitable for
boat landings. The inhabitants made large profits on the
trade of Greek Marseilles along the Rhône axis: Massaliot amphorae are particularly abundant on the site.
In the Roman period human settlement shifted to the
alluvial plain S of the oppidum. Several 1st c. tombs
have been discovered in the St-Joseph district.
Part of the finds are kept in the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle at Avignon; some pieces are in the Musée Borély at Marseilles.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
P. Jacobsthal & J. Neuffer, “Gallia
Graeca” in
Préhistoire (1933) ii, 17-18; J. Maureau,
“Sépultures gallo-romaines à Roquemaure,”
Bull. Soc. Et. Sciences naturelles du Vaucluse 2 (1934) 44-46; C.
Lagrand, “La céramique ‘pseudo-ionienne’ dans la Vallée
du Rhône,”
Cahiers Rhodaniens 10 (1963) 54-56
I; F. Benoit, “La ceramique peinte de Roquemaure à l'époque grecque,”
Cahiers Rhodaniens 11 (1964) 30-61
MI; id.,
Recherches sur l'hellénisation du Midi de la Gaule (1965) passim
MI.
J. CHARMASSON
