Alyscamps

Coordinates: 43°40′17″N 04°38′13″E / 43.67139°N 4.63694°E / 43.67139; 4.63694
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Alyscamps
An alley in the Alyscamps
Alyscamps is located in France
Alyscamps
Shown within France
LocationArles, Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
Coordinates43°40′17″N 04°38′13″E / 43.67139°N 4.63694°E / 43.67139; 4.63694
TypeNecropolis
History
Founded4th century AD or earlier
Site notes
Europe and North America
Alyscamps
Medieval Church of Saint Honoratus in Les Alyscamps, Arles

The Alyscamps is a large

Inferno.[1]

Roman cities traditionally forbade burials within the city limits. It was therefore common for the roads immediately outside a city to be lined with tombs and mausoleums; the

Aurelian Way leading up to the city gates and was used as a burial ground for well-off citizens, whose memorials ranged from simple sarcophagi to elaborate monuments. In 1981, the Alyscamps was classified a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as part of the Arles, Roman and Romanesque Monuments group.[2]

History

The Alyscamps continued to be used after the city was Christianised in the 4th century.

Christ
himself attended the ceremony, leaving the imprint of his knee on a sarcophagus lid.

The area became a highly desirable place to be buried and tombs soon multiplied. As early as the 4th century there were already several thousand tombs, necessitating the stacking of sarcophagi three layers deep. Burial in the Alyscamps became so desirable that bodies were shipped there from all over Europe, with the

Rhône
boatmen making a healthy profit from the transportation of coffins to Arles.

The Alyscamps continued to be used well into medieval times, although the removal of Saint Trophimus' relics to the cathedral in 1152 reduced its prestige. During the Renaissance the necropolis was systematically looted, with city councillors giving sarcophagi as gifts to distinguished visitors and local people using funerary stones as building material. It was further damaged by the arrival of the railway and a canal in the 19th century, both of which sliced across the site. In late October 1888 Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin chose the Alyscamps as the first site for their expeditions where they painted side by side;[3] by this time it was a remnant of its former self. It has since been somewhat restored as an open-air museum. In his final book Caesar's Vast Ghost, Lawrence Durrell recommends the Alyscamps for its beauty and atmosphere; he writes: "It is unique in its charm."[4]

Conservation

The better of the remaining sarcophagi are now on display in the

Musée de l'Arles et de la Provence antiques
, which has one of the best collections of Roman sarcophagi to be found anywhere outside Rome itself.

Gallery

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-571-21427-4
    ; see page 98 in the reset edition of 2002
  2. ^ "Arles, Roman and Romanesque Monuments". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  3. ISBN 0-670-91497-5
    . See page 61
  4. ^ Lawrence Durrell, work cited, page 100.

External links

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