Primary archaeological documentation (Nakala)
AOROC Collection on Nakala, TGIR Huma-Num

, by Agnès

Since the publications are available online, the priorities are to archive and to make accessible primary archaeological documentation from the CNRS, the ENS, the EPHE or PSL. Each document will be listed in the NAKALA application with a “Handle” whereas the metadata will be accessible from a document open to the public.

Excavations at Levroux (Indre)

Levroux was excavated between 1968 and 1990. It revealed two successive phases of Celtic urban development in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC.

- A settlement was discovered and excavated in the plains of the Champagne berrichone region..Artisans and merchants came to the region to export their products and receive imports, such as Italian wine.
- The village moved to the nearest Boischaut hill during the 1st century BC.
The construction of a rampart made of wood, soil and stone and encompassing a zone of 20 hectares – symbol of an urban foundation –, suggests that this change was due to authorities interested in controlling the local productions of the previous city.

Levroux has thus become a model for explaining the urbanization process in all of Celtic Europe. About three hectares of this artisanal city have been excavated. Over five hundred thousand objects were found, including bones and traces of metalwork. Excavation results were published between 1988 and 2000.

L’agglomération artisanale a été fouillée sur environ 3 hectares. Plus de cinq cent mille objets, ossements, de vestiges du travail de métaux, ont été répertoriés.
Les publications se sont échelonnées entre 1988 et 2000.

You should found here all the primary documentation from the excavations.

Excavations at Bourges (Cher)

Excavations of the Iron Age deposits in Bourges started in 1995 by conducting surveys of the southwestern periphery (Lazenay) and of the city center (Hôtel-Dieu).
The construction of Bourges, « the fairest city in almost all of Gaul » according to Julius Caesar (1st century BC), began in the 6th century BC. The city belongs to the aristocratic complex of the 6th century BC, associating princely tombs and fortified settlements of prestige (such as Vix, Côte-d’Or, or the Heuneburg, Baden-Würtemberg).
This excavation focuses on 15 hectares in the outlying areas of the hill settlement, today buried under the modern town of Bourges.

Excavation results reveal the presence of an artisanal neighborhood, where bronze, iron and lignite jewelry were manufactured. Pearls of glass, amber and coral were imported and sometimes crafted on site. The Greek and Provençal ceramic imports were few but found throughout the site, indicating the high status of these artisans.

As of today, this is the largest settlement area dedicated to artisanal production to be explored in Celtic Europe with Hochdorf (Baden-Würtemberg). Several hundreds of thousands of objects, bones and traces of metalwork have been inventoried. Their distribution on the site was studied by using a GIS. The results were published in 2012.

Access to the Bourges Collection


IOTA : Search engine for Nakala

Our aim is to quickly open one sub-collection per site on Nakala and to incorporate cross-linking in metadata, in order to simplify the navigation between diverse documents (images, spreadsheets, diagrams, texts, vector documents, georeferenced maps).

More information on IOTA