Temple of Janus

About

The "Janus" temple is a Celto-Roman-inspired cultural building located in Autun, in the department of Saône-et-Loire, France, northwest of the ancient city of Augustostodunum. This temple is part of a vast sanctuary whose excavations, which began in 2013 and continued until 2016, then 2019, reveal the extent and complexity, in an area whose occupation dates back to the Neolithic period and which has undergone an important phase of monumental constructions in the first century C.E.; It was abandoned at the very beginning of the early Middle Ages, but its structures were reused for the production of a medieval defensive work. Two sections of its square cella are preserved on a height of more than 20 meters as well as remains of the foundations of its peribole and its ancillary constructions.

The dedication of the temple to the Roman divinity Janus is not based on any archaeological or historical fact and the venerated divinity in this temple is unknown. The temple of Janus is on the first list, established in 1840, of protected French historical monuments.