Palais du gouverneur de Lugdunum

About

The basilical insula is the name given by its inventor Amable Audin to a site that has hosted several Roman constructions, in the ancient district of Fourvière in Lyon, France. Overlooking the ancient theatre, it was excavated from 1925 by several archaeologists and then largely cleared by Audin between 1965 and 1978. The identification of the ruins discovered has been the subject of various interpretations, both historical and speculative, but their destination remains unknown.

Thus, many names have been given to this complex space, including Augustian basilical insula, the temple of Cybelus, the sanctuary of Cybelus (or the pseudo-sanctuary of Cybelus), the pretoire of Agrippa or the governor's palace. If the first archaeologists identify a temple of Cybelus, Audin digs deeper and thinks to find in the lower layers a civil basilica associated with administrative premises: he calls the whole "basilical insula". In the 1990s, Armand Desbat conducted new studies using modern techniques and concluded that the buildings previously supposed to be cultural were two constructions that followed each other at about twenty years apart: a rich...