Gallo-Roman Temple of Tours

About

The Gallo-Roman Temple of Tours is an ancient cult building of the fanum type, dated from the end of the first century C.E., which was located in the city centre of the ancient city of Caesardunum, also corresponding to the heart of the contemporary city of Tours, in the department of Indre-et-Loire. It succeeds in all probability, at the same location, to a first sanctuary built in the first half of the first century. It belongs to the rather small group of Celtic-inspired urban temples with circular sanctuary, such as the Vesone Tower in Périgueux.

Its cella is probably more than thirty metres in diameter outside for at least twenty metres high; It is preceded to the east by a classic Roman-style pronaos surmounted by a triangular pediment, the whole being inscribed in a peribol of about 0.7 hectares. The building thus appears to be the result of the meeting of two religious but also architectural cultures, although the reasons that led to the choice of such a particular building are unknown. Many elements of its architecture, decor and environment remain to be discovered.

Finally, historians and archaeologists do not...