GRAUFESENQUE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE

La Graufesenque is the name of this place, next to the city where during two centuries at the beginning of our era the famous potteries of terra sigillata were manufactured. Its location at the confluence of the Tarn and Dourbie rivers allowed Condatomagus - the future Millau - to exploit the clay of this alluvial plain in the first century of our era. Excavations, undertaken since 1860, have brought to light a part of the exploitation site of which we can see today a part of the plan, traced by low walls which determine the location of the workshops, the housing areas, the temples. A large pit, into which the failed pieces were thrown, allowed the archaeologists to draw up a catalog of the production of Graufesenque, to complete that which had been established thanks to the ceramics found from the north of Europe to the Middle East and recognizable by their forms, their decorations and the signature of the potters. Initially replicas of Italian ceramics, the vases of the Graufesenque potters were famous for their red and shiny terracotta, signed - marked with a hallmark -, decorated with foliage, characters or smooth. The production became standardized thanks to the use of molds. At the height of its activity, more than 600 workshops produced millions of pieces which were transported, via the Roman road which passed through Millau, to the entire Mediterranean basin. Approximately 2,500^m2 have been cleared and give a precise idea of the activity of this site of about 15 hectares.