© Flore Giraud
In an interview with RT.com, archaeologist Benjamin Clement explained how his team has been working since April to conserve the historical site before building begins nearby on a housing complex.
Several Ancient Roman residences are located at the site in the city of Vienne, which sits along the banks of the Rhone river. So far the researchers have uncovered lavish mosaics constructed from marble sourced as far away as Turkey, Greece and Tunisia.
According to Clement, the ruins were abandoned after a fire in the 3rd Century AD, leaving archaeologists with a treasure trove.
"It's a really, really exciting discovery because the site is very well preserved and we've found so many different things. It's like a concentration of all the Roman Empire in this little site," Clement said.
"It is maybe the first time in France that we can really think about the upper, middle and lower class way of living [in the Roman Empire]."
The remains include a public trading area and residences. Furniture, currency and even Roman legion weapons have been found scattered throughout the 7,000-square-meter area.
"We discovered two large public places. The first one is like a huge marketplace, like a Roman mall, and the second one was maybe a huge building for teaching philosophy," Clement explained.
"In the other part of the site we found two aristocratic houses."
Interestingly, flooring used in the elaborate tiling came from protectorate regions of the empire, such as Carthage, thousands of miles away.
© Flore Giraud
"It really showed us how the commercial organization of the empire was really functional and the connection [with other regions] really important," he said.
The excavation is due to be completed in December this year.
("But what's that got to do with 'little Pompeii,?" you ask. Be patient, young grasshopper.)
Then, in a late 70's summer that I spent surfing in Southern California, I was lucky enough to meet and date a beautiful classy So Cal beach girl who grew up near Anaheim, and she took me to Disneyland for the only time I've ever been there.
As I told her I'd never been there, and she grew up near it, she started telling me where and what was what. I replied, well 'Tommorowland is over that way to the right, and Pirates of The Caribbean on the left" as we walked towards Cindy's castle, and she wouldn't believe, for a little while, the truth I had also been unaware of, that they used the same layout of Disneyland for building a scaled up Disneyworld.
More specifically, Disney built Disneyland, in the 1950's, in Anaheim, SE of LA in Orange County, where it was sure to be a big hit. THEN, seeing that Florida was going to follow in the tracks of Southern California, and become a landing zone for all those fleeing the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt, Disney bought up all the cheap land SW of Orlando, and built a BIG Copy of DL as it had much, much more room. I would guess the scale of WDW Vs. DL is about 4 to one but the order is -or at least was then - the same.
Perhaps some Roman investor did the same thing with little and big Pompeii. Nothing is new under the sun, after all. Lesson done, Grasshopper.
R.C.