Besancon amphitheater

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Amphitheater de Besançon
Place of origin Vesontio
Construction year 1st century
renovation 20th century
External dimensions 130 × 106 × 21 m
capacity 24,000 seats
Classification Monument historique

The amphitheater of Besançon ( French Arènes de Besançon ) are the remains of a Roman amphitheater that was built in the first century in what was then Vesontio (today Besançon in the Doubs department ). It is compared to the amphitheaters of Arles and Nîmes .

Details

The amphitheater is located within the Besançon loop in the Battant district . The theater could accommodate 18,000 to 20,000 spectators and was 124 m long and 105 m wide with a height of 21 m.

Only a few stands and foundations that were found during the excavations from 1996 onwards have survived. The theater served as a quarry in the Middle Ages . With the stones extracted, several buildings that are worth seeing today were built:

The street that passes in front of the remains is called “Rue des Arènes” and the district was once called “Quartier des Arènes”.

Classification

The remains of the Roman arena and the Saint-Jacques chapel in Besançon in the Condé barracks (today Lycée d'enseignement professionnel Condé ) were declared a monument historique on April 2, 1927 .

On February 12, 2002, the section between the Avenue Charles-Siffert in the north, the Rue Marulaz in the south, the staircase that connects the two streets in the east and the square in the west was also declared a Monument Historique .

Web links

Commons : Besançon amphitheater  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ This is the Roman name of Besançon (see also Battle of Vesontio ).
  2. ↑ The Doubs forms a loop here and thus forms a quasi-peninsula on which the original city was built.
  3. ↑ Jean-Claude BARCON et Annick Richard: Raconte-moi Besançon: sur les pas des Gallo-Romains. Ville de Besançon, 2007, p. 23.
  4. ↑ a b Entry no. PA00101454 in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)

Coordinates: 47 ° 14 '  N , 6 ° 3'  E