Arles - The Necropolis

Among the many Roman remnants that makes Arles a Unesco World Heritage Site, are the remnants of a Roman necropolis, Les Alyscamps.  Les Alyscamps, by the way, means 'Elysian Fields' in Occitan, the old Provençal language. In modern French it's Champs Élysées.  Signs we read there said it had continued to be used for a thousand or more years after the Romans left.  It was famous (according to the signs) in the middle ages and rich people used to send their bodies from a long way off, down the Rhone, to be buried there. There are still some family chapels from that period.  It was so famous that it's mentioned in Dante's Inferno. If I read the French correctly, it was so full at one time, that the sarcophagi were stacked three or four high.

Today, it's smaller. Just a few blocks walk from the central square, along a canal, in dappled shade with birds, bees and flowers  doing their Spring things all around. Not unpleasant.  In structure, it's a long avenue lined with carved stone sarcophagi (now empty). There is a somewhat ruined medieval church at the end which is the beginning of the Arlesian pilgrimage route to Santiago in Spain, so there are clamshells along the way.

Right now you are probably asking yourself  - why does the Arlesian route of  Compostelle de St. Jacques start here?  Well, I have the answer -- Saints.  Toward the end of the Roman era Genesius, an accountant or notary or legal civil servant of some kind, refused to write down the names of Christians who were to be persecuted. For this, he was beheaded and, thus, became a saint. Even though he wasn't even a Christian. And he was buried in Les Alyscamps.  So was St. Trophime before his church was built and he was relocated.

{I'm pausing here in my own world, to reflect on what the French labor unions of today would do if one of their members were beheaded for refusing to make a list.  Pretty amusing to speculate}

I somehow didn't take any pictures there, though the COG took plenty.  Here are some from the internet.

And a closer view of sarcophagi.

and the church.

Arles Theater again

I found a panorama I made of the theatre in Arles, showing a more complete view. Here it is, click to make it larger.

Arles, Day 2 continued again

Is it wrong that the only picture I took of St. Trophime is of a chandelier?  And is it wrong to covet a chandelier that hangs in a beautiful Romanesque church?

The picture of the chandelier, also shows some lovely Romanesque arches and, oh look some gothic ones, too, I guess.

Arles, Day 2 continued.

After the Cryptoportico, we went to the 13th century Romanesque church of St. Trophime across the square from the Town Hall.  There's a long kind of gory story blahbbity blah about how St. Trophime became a saint, which I will spare you, mostly because I can't remember it.  He was the first Bishop of Arles, in the third century, so 1,000 years before the church was built.  The facade of the church is quite beautiful because of the carvings. I've taken these pictures from the internet:

Here's a close up of Daniel and the lions from the front. Rather fetching, I think.

There are two or three things that stand out for me.  First, the church has a small chapel filled with relics, mostly bone fragments, of the saints and bishops of Arles.   These relics are in elaborate gold and silver boxes and they are definitely weird.   Secondly, for obscure and mysterious reasons, the Chapel of Our Lady of Victory at Saint Catherine's in St. Paul, is modelled on St. Trophime in Arles.  It's the same general shape, but without the gorgeous Romanesque carvings.  See Below. 

Arles - Another Day, Another Roman Ruin or two.

The second full day in Arles was Glorious.  Sunshine all day, in the 60s, birdsong, bees, cats lying in the sun, flowers everywhere and the blossoming trees really blossomed.

We started the day at the Cryptoporticus, which is a little difficult to explain.  The Forum was built into a hill and underneath there were lots of shops in a double arcade.  Like a walk-out basement - the shops  were underground at the back, but at ground level in the front.  All of it is below ground level now.

You enter from the main square, through the Hôtel de Ville (the Town Hall), and go down down down some metal stairs and you find this wonderful underground arcade stretching a long way. The COG and I were the only people there, which was awesome.  It's a three sided, U-shaped arcade, but there are some areas where it is deeper than just one shop on either side of the walk, so it's a little more complicated than that and a little more fun to wander around in.

Think for a moment about the continuity of this, what it means - today's central square is built where the Roman forum was, right over part of it.  That just boggles my mind.   So here's a couple of pictures:

Looking in one direction

And in another direction.

Breaking News....

According to the British newspapers, March wasn't the coldest March in half a century.  It was the coldest in over 100 years.

It's kind of ironic, actually.  Britain is on about the same latitude as Calgary and Moscow,  but the jet stream warms it to its usual temperate climate.  Now the oceans are warming  up, which is melting the polar ice cap. This pushes the jet stream farther south, making Britain colder.

Arles, First Day

What I didn't realize about Arles, before we came, was just how much Roman stuff there is.  I knew there was some, of course, but for a small town, Arles has a huge amount of Roman stuff still there.

Having said that, this first picture isn't Roman, but probably medieval.  Looking at this wall near our hotel, you can see the many changes to the structure that happen as a building changes through the 500 or 1,000 years of its existence.  This is a common sight in France and Italy, but you can see it even in Brighton, which seems young, but was mentioned in the Domesday book (18 inhabitants, 1 slave, 3 ploughshares and a tax levy of 4,000 herrings).  Just look at those blocked in doors and windows. 

 We visited the Roman Theatre the first full morning we were there, as it was just a block from our hotel. Off to one side of the theatre is a kind of holding station for the jigsaw puzzle of bits and pieces they've found.  It's intriguing to walk through and find pieces that seem to go together - a relief of a horses legs on one, the head on another.  a capitol and a piece of column. 

The theatre is still used, by virtue of a modern stage put over the Roman understage area, and is being restored as an ongoing project.  The pavements between the seats and the stage are wonderfully colored stone and that's what they are working on now. There was once a wall, full of niches and doorways and columns all along the front, facing the audience. Those two pillars give some sense of the size - there were once many pillars. 

You can see some of the puddles left by the rain the day we arrived and the sun didn't appear until afternoon.  Here's some seating, taken from the same position as the above.  

The theatre was kind of incorporated into a convent in the middle ages, but that's gone, now. 

After lunch, we went to the Amphitheatre, just round the corner from the theatre.  I didn't take any pictures from the outside, alas, but here are a couple from the inside. 

The first, is from the ground floor, looking up to the arches on the second floor, through the missing floor. You wouldn't have seen this back in the day.  Isn't it amazing that those arches are still there 2000 years later.

During the upheavals of the middle ages, the Amphitheatre was converted to a fortress. The exterior walls were fortified like a walled city. The arches were filled in and 4 lookout towers were built forming 4 gates. Then, the whole place was backfilled with living space.  Very clever of the Arlesians, I think.  If you look at the picture below (which is on the second floor, where the flooring remains or has been replaced) you can see the square holes made to hold beams for the building in of homes in that period.

That was our first day, more tomorrow.