Living with gods

Around the Gallo-Roman sanctuary of the Gué-de-Sciaux

Gestures to honour and thank gods

Between the end of the 1st century BC and the beginning of the 1st century AC, the faithful threw currencies walking around the dry stone quadrangular plan building, carrying on a gaulish tradition. Two submissions have been discovered on the north and the south of the edifice.

From the 1st to the 3rd century AC, currencies were offered to the sanctuary’s gods according to the religious Roman habit of the Stips; these donations permitted to maintain the place of worship. At the same time, other donations were made: altars, statues, figurines, vases, etc.

In parallel, terra cotta washers have been used to symbolize their passage or their participation in ceremonies, as substitutes for currencies. The resort to other circular objects (metal rings, bone tokens) was also certified.

Testimonies of devotion were also in alternative forms.

Thus, ex-votos were deposited to thank gods, after the granting of a wish. In the Gué-de-Sciaux, sheet bronze bars figuring eyes have been offered to Apollo after the recovery from ocular diseases.

The donation could also be composed of everyday objects: fibulas*, rings, bracelets, tools, etc; it can also be objects kept for their age and their originality, as cut flints or polished axes, or even a bronze lion figure, considered decent for gods.

Around the end of the 2nd century or the beginning of the 3rd century AC, a terra cotta vase containing eleven carefully selected currencies has been deposited in the sanctuary’s floor. Its burial could correspond to the building of several little edifices; it may be an individual or a collective donation.

*fibula: pin used to maintain clothes; it became a decorative over the centuries.