page_title: Ambrussum
section_title: Staging post
hierarchical_section_title: Ambrussum / Site / Staging post
caption_attribution_description: Ambrussum is a Roman archaeological site in Villetelle, near Lunel, Hérault, the Via Domitia which led over the Pont Ambroix, ran at the foot of the settlement. Here we find a staging post complex.
context_page_description: Ambrussum is a Roman archaeological site in Villetelle, Hérault département, in southern France.
  It is close to the modern town Lunel, between Nîmes and Montpellier. Ambrussum is notable for its museum, its staging post on the Via Domitia, its bridge Pont Ambroix over the Vidourle, painted by Gustave Courbet, and for its oppidum. Its history of settlement spanned 400 years.
  The whole site is still being excavated. A lower settlement prone to flooding was a staging post for travellers on the Via Domitia and provided stabling and accommodation and the full range of repair facilities that were needed by carts and the Imperial postal service. The higher settlement was based on a pre-Roman oppidum which was within a surrounding wall including 21 towers. The Romans re-modelled the oppidum, so there is evidence of a complete range of housing styles from the earliest one room dwellings to sophisticated courtyard houses on the second century AD.
  The Roman road, the Via Domitia, ran at the foot of the settlement, leading from it is a paved road with visible with traces of Roman chariot tracks.
context_section_description: The existence of a staging post for the Imperial mail is known of from written sources, and also that it was located by the Vidourle and as a consequence was continually being rebuilt. An embankment was built to protect the settlement from flooding. The Imperial staging post itself was a complex containing two courtyards and two buildings. In the south gallery, the walls were decorated with paintings and a purse containing 43 denarii has also been found there. This building would have been for Imperial messengers and travelling officials. It was renovated and possibly changed its use in the fourth century AD, at a time when the rest of the site had been abandoned. 
  A separate inn has been excavated. It contained a courtyard for the animals and carts and five guest rooms. Adjacent was a building with a bread oven. The inn remained substantially unchanged from 30 BC to AD 125. Nearby, and closer to the water were two further inns, parts of which date from AD 200 to 250. The settlement was substantial enough to have a bathhouse. Although most of it is now beneath a modern road, the heater chamber remains. The praefurnia took the heated air to the underfloor heating, hot water to the calidarium and steam to the laconicum. There was also a blacksmith's courtyard house with a forge specialising in carriage building. This dates from AD 25 to 175.  Excavations are still continuing; the land is privately owned and not accessible to the public.
caption: Taverns and Hotels to the south of the mutatio.
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