1 00:00:00,160 --> 00:00:03,800 When and why were the habitations within the amphitheater removed? 1b 00:00:04,160 --> 00:00:09,000 At the end of the 18th century, the city of Nîmes wanted to embellish 2 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:14,269 both the city and its monuments. It therefore decided to purchase 3 00:00:14,269 --> 00:00:18,860 the constructions that surrounded part of the amphitheater 4 00:00:18,860 --> 00:00:22,289 as well as all the others within the amphitheater. 5 00:00:22,289 --> 00:00:25,300 It was a kind of district of the city, 6 00:00:25,300 --> 00:00:29,600 which in the Middle Ages was called "the château of the Arena," 7 00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:35,200 with a square, a well, chapels, and many buildings. 8 00:00:35,200 --> 00:00:39,399 In 1800, the architect Victor Grangent, 9 00:00:39,399 --> 00:00:44,600 who was an engineer from the famous Ponts et Chaussées school, began the excavation work. 10 00:00:44,600 --> 00:00:49,829 In 1809, he started removing all of the constructions and 11 00:00:49,829 --> 00:00:52,500 all of the ruins within the amphitheater. 12 00:00:52,500 --> 00:00:55,600 The arena floor that we know 13 00:00:55,600 --> 00:01:00,800 was buried under a heap 6 to 7 meters deep of ruins. 14 00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:07,200 Grangent would clean up the amphitheater and bring it closer to its original appearance by the end of his work. 14b 00:01:07,300 --> 00:01:11,160 Who continued the restoration work? 15 00:01:11,300 --> 00:01:15,900 Several architects would continue the work started by Grangent, 16 00:01:15,900 --> 00:01:18,709 including Charles Questel and Auguste Pelet. 17 00:01:18,709 --> 00:01:25,349 Auguste Pelet, an archeologist from Nîmes, completed an absolutely remarkable collection 18 00:01:25,349 --> 00:01:27,959 of models of the monuments in Nîmes, 19 00:01:27,959 --> 00:01:32,750 and in the Roman world at the scale of 1:100 20 00:01:32,750 --> 00:01:37,300 in cork--a material that ages well and can be used for precise details. 21 00:01:37,300 --> 00:01:46,200 The model we are looking at is a representation of the monument in the 1850s--1860s. 22 00:01:46,200 --> 00:01:53,600 After these archeologists, restorers, and architects, Henri Révoil arrived. 23 00:01:53,600 --> 00:01:57,400 Henri Révoil was an Architect of Historical Monuments 24 00:01:57,400 --> 00:02:05,400 who oversaw the complete restoration of the monument from 1854 to 1870. 25 00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:09,100 He would see to the consolidation of the lintels on the first level. 26 00:02:09,100 --> 00:02:13,500 He would consolidate staircases and create ones that were missing. 27 00:02:13,500 --> 00:02:17,300 Then, he recreated the first ten rows of the cavea. 28 00:02:17,300 --> 00:02:19,900 This was really a major undertaking. 29 00:02:19,900 --> 00:02:26,000 He was helped by architects from Nîmes, 30 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:28,700 including the famous Charles Durand. 31 00:02:28,700 --> 00:02:34,200 We must not forget, because there was a considerable amount of work to be done. 32 00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:41,000 And the Arena would progressively take on the shape and the volume we see today 33 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:44,900 and even before the great restoration project conducted by Révoil. 34 00:02:44,900 --> 00:02:51,200 For 16 years, Révoil would work hard to restore the monument considerably. 35 00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:54,110 He left us some "attachment notebooks" 36 00:02:54,110 --> 00:02:57,690 that are altogether remarkable--120 pages of highly colored images. 37 00:02:57,690 --> 00:03:00,680 He also invented the "teleiconographer". 38 00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:07,500 It's a device that enabled him to draw elements in the amphitheater from a distance. 38b 00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:11,500 Was this work written up in any scientific publications? 39 00:03:11,700 --> 00:03:16,090 Indeed, his work left behind traces, in particular on the monument. 40 00:03:16,090 --> 00:03:20,600 But also in the literature and in the historical monuments archives, 41 00:03:20,600 --> 00:03:25,069 for the monitoring of the restoration work on historical monuments. 42 00:03:25,069 --> 00:03:30,810 And then by somebody who is well known here at the Archeology Museum, Félix Mazauric. 43 00:03:30,810 --> 00:03:36,400 Félix Mazauric was a speleologist who was an expert in hydrology. 44 00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:40,000 He was interested in geology, prehistory, and tourism. 45 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:43,870 Then he became the curator of the Archeology Museum in 1906. 46 00:03:43,870 --> 00:03:47,400 As soon as he got a position here in this building, 47 00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:54,400 he would write the first scientific document on underground rooms of the Nîmes amphitheater. 48 00:03:54,400 --> 00:03:57,200 It's a booklet published in the memoirs of the Académie de Nîmes, 49 00:03:57,200 --> 00:04:03,400 which explains at length the complexity of the amphitheater's hydraulic system. 50 00:04:03,400 --> 00:04:06,240 Then, in the second part of his life, 51 00:04:06,240 --> 00:04:11,000 he devoted himself to writing the history of the Château located in the Arena. 52 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:15,370 He studied charters and the local archives 53 00:04:15,370 --> 00:04:21,090 to write this remarkable work, but he would never see it published. 54 00:04:21,090 --> 00:04:25,100 It's his daughter, Lucie Mazauric, who would publish this work in 1934 55 00:04:25,100 --> 00:04:27,100 in a journal specializing in history and archeology (Les cahiers d'histoire et d'archéologie). 56 00:04:27,100 --> 00:04:33,800 Mazauric was an erudite scholar, poet, and free and independent thinker. 57 00:04:33,800 --> 00:04:37,800 When Mazauric died, Émile Espérandieu, who was an officer, took over 58 00:04:37,800 --> 00:04:41,160 and also became the curator of the Archeology Museum. 59 00:04:41,160 --> 00:04:45,600 He was an epigrapher, an archeologist who had a career especially in North Africa. 60 00:04:45,600 --> 00:04:48,680 But he was given the mission in France in 1904 61 00:04:48,680 --> 00:04:52,900 of writing a work on bas reliefs and sculptures in Roman Gaul. 62 00:04:52,900 --> 00:05:00,900 He wrote a certain number of articles, including a booklet about the amphitheater, 63 00:05:00,900 --> 00:05:07,900 which he published in the series on monuments of France in 1933. 64 00:05:07,900 --> 00:05:12,900 This booklet would remain valid until the 1980s. 64b 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:16,800 Were the excavation methods different from the ones used today? 65 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:19,550 Archeology in the 19th century 66 00:05:19,550 --> 00:05:24,500 was not at all the same as archeology in the 21st century. 67 00:05:24,500 --> 00:05:31,720 In the 19th century, those who did this work were at the same time architects and archeologists, 68 00:05:31,720 --> 00:05:34,699 with extensive training in the classics. They were passionate, 69 00:05:34,699 --> 00:05:39,700 but went straight to what was essential, that is they tried to give 70 00:05:39,700 --> 00:05:44,100 the best possible interpretation of the monument and the amphitheater. 71 00:05:44,100 --> 00:05:48,500 The archeologists of the 21st century do not have that concern. 72 00:05:48,500 --> 00:05:54,820 They go into the tiny details that enable them to better understand 73 00:05:54,820 --> 00:06:00,020 the construction or the way the building project was managed in Roman times.