A Roman quarry used as a garbage dump concealed a statue of a nude Venus

More than two thousand years ago, Rennes was the capital of the Redones tribe, a Gallic people who lived on the banks of the Liger River.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
28 March 2023 Tuesday 09:41
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A Roman quarry used as a garbage dump concealed a statue of a nude Venus

More than two thousand years ago, Rennes was the capital of the Redones tribe, a Gallic people who lived on the banks of the Liger River. At that time, the Romans called Condate (Civitas Riedonium) to this prosperous enclave that became territory of the Empire from the year 28 BC.

Recent works on rue d'Antrain have revealed a quarry from Roman times dating from the 1st century AD. When it was abandoned a few decades later, the site was used as a garbage dump and has allowed experts from the French National Institute for Archaeological Research (Inrap) to discover the terracotta statue of a nude Venus.

The representation of the Roman goddess associated with love, beauty, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity and victory, holding her hair, has been dated between the first and second centuries after Christ.

From the mine, more than 2 meters deep, small slabs of Brioverian schist were extracted for the construction of the foundations of many walls and streets of Condate. It was probably part of a larger complex near the northern edge of the old Gallo-Roman city, much of which is still buried under modern buildings.

According to the Inrap archaeologists, this is one of the few Gallo-Roman quarries excavated in western France and the first in the territory of Rennes. The tools and techniques used on the site have allowed us to understand some of the routines of the mine workers, their organization and management.

During the 2nd century, the quarry was abandoned and the inhabitants of the area began to use it as a rubbish dump where many everyday objects were thrown away. For this reason, during the excavations, tens of kilos of fragments of ceramic tableware, several terracotta statuettes of deities, coins and ornamental elements have been unearthed.

The old mine seems to have been completely filled in at the end of the medieval period (14th-15th centuries). The site was then reoccupied and artisanal and domestic activities developed, as evidenced by the discovery, along a rough circulation axis, of remains of wooden constructions (in the form of holes for posts), particularly well-preserved ovens and wells. .

A 17th-century pipe was also found, when the space was occupied by the gardens of the former Hôtel des Demoiselles, a girls' house of education that later became a convent and later a boarding school. The researchers say the pipe was used in Rennes' water supply in the modern era.