Decorated block with decapitated Gaul found in Toul

A carved block that was once part of the entablature of a monumental Gallo-Roman public building has been discovered in Toul, northeastern France. It is covered with vegetal motifs in the Corinthian style, a type of decoration that was popular throughout the Empire in the 1st and 2nd centuries. This is the first time an architectural element of this imposing size, decorative carving and design style has been found in Toul.

Dubbed Tullum Leucorum by the Romans, Toul was the capital of the Belgic Leuci tribe. In the Roman era, the town prospered thanks to its strategic military and commercial location on the Moselle river at the crossroads of two major Roman roads. It started out as a Leuci hillfort (oppidium), and in the late 3rd or early 4th centuries, the Romans built large defensive walls, heavily reliant on spoglia (building materials recycled from older structures), that encircled the town for centuries. The walls and 15 towers were still in active use until the fortifications were rebuilt in 1700.

Archaeologists from France’s National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) have been excavating where new heating network will be installed in the old city center. A fragment of the ancient wall seven feet thick was discovered in April, followed by a low masonry and rubble wall nearby. The carved stone block was found 20 feet from this second wall. It was buried in backfilled soil, but was able to be recovered for a quick initial cleaning at the site.

The white limestone block is a large section of a highly decorated entablature. It is four feet long, 3.3 feet deep and 1.7 feet high and weighs more than 880 pounds. It has two ornate modillions (brackets used as supports under high, flat parts of a building like cornices and roofs). It is broken at both ends, likely damaged when it was torn off an old building for reuse in the wall.

The modillions feature acanthus-like vegetal decoration on one and the Gallo-Roman version of a Green Man figure on the other. Between the modillions are two rectangular metopes. One is carved with what appears to be a shield, the other with a Gallic head with a hollow eye, an iconographic type seen on local potin leuque coins from the 1st B.C. the head is severed, cut off at the neck, and is resting on a Roman sword. This is symbolic of Rome’s victory over Gaul.

While one decorated entablature with comparable features has been found in a large mausoleum north of Trier, the size and elaborate decoration of this block indicates it was used in a monumental public building. Comparable examples have been found in the facades of temples, theaters, baths, triumphal arches and gates from the 2nd century A.D.

The block has been removed from the site and placed in temporary storage at the INRAP headquarters in Metz. It will cleaned, conserved and studied before eventually going on display in the Toul museum.

* This article was originally published here