The Neolithic & Iron Age of Rennes-le-Château.
The origin's of Rennes-le-Château are literally lost in the mists of time. Several scholars, in the last century, tried to reconstruct its past but their conclusions were not always based on solid evidence. Almost all of the popular studies refer to only two works: The Diocèse d'Alet et Comté de Razès (1877) by Louis Fédié (1815-1899) and La Vraie Langue Celtique et le Cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains (1886) by the Reverend Henri Boudet (1837-1915). Both - as we shall see - have to be read carefully and critically, neither being entirely based on archaeological or documentary evidence. Christian Raynaud wrote: " to reconstruct the history of Rennes-le-Château from the beginning [...], since the documents are silent, you must make a clean sweep of all those layers of ... legendary literature …. and let the rare remains [that have] survived the passage of time speak rather than the word .. “(1).
Historians agree that the geographical area surrounding Rennes-le-Château was inhabited from the earliest times and as regards to its hill, Jean Paul Courrent & Philippe Héléna speak of an "important prehistoric site, the latest point of penetration of a Roman settlement "(2). René Descadeillas adds: "It is assumed, and the discovery of skeletons buried in different parts of the village and on the top of the hill makes this hypothesis likely, that the town of Rennes has always been inhabited long before the Romans occupied Gaul(3). In fact the site, which has an excellent geographical position allowed a good view on the access roads and the surrounding valley and was characterized by a spring of water that could serve a population of some significance".
These findings however, albeit fragmented and heterogeneous, are insufficient to establish a human presence on the hill and around Rennes-le-Château since prehistoric times. Among various discoveries there is one that stands out as sensational as it is dubious: The local newspaper, Depeche du Midi of March 16, 1966 reported a discovery made by Henri Fatin and his son, owners of the château of Rennes-le-Château, which brought to light a whole male fossil (4). Unfortunately, Fatin never bothered to allow the extraordinary find to be analyzed by competent archaeologists, but instead preferred to present it in a hall of the castle he used as a local archaeological museum. The only independent opinion that is left is that of Guy Rancoule, an archaeologist of Limoux, who alleged that the "fossil man" was nothing but a "bizarre carving [of] natural stone"(5).
Ten years before Noël Corbu had found the skeleton (real this time) of an individual - 1m 95 in height - and according to a guess by Rene Nelli, keeper of the museum at the time of Carcassonne, it was the skeleton of a chief of some tribe of the Iberians dated circa 700 BC (6). Claire Corbu, Noel's daughter, talks of the same find in very different terms: the skeleton was found during a series excavations at the entrance of the Villa Bethania and dates back to the VIIIth century AD(7) although Jean Fourie was sceptical about this find: for him the skeleton is missing and perhaps would rather have belonged to a soldier who died during the Second World War (8).
They have a more solid historical foundation of this finding cited in the bulletin of the Societe d'Etudes Scientifiques de l'Aude , in which an article by Elie Tisseyre tells of a visit to Rennes-le-Château. He cites Auguste Fons 'who had recently discovered at the foot of the old ramparts of the fortress, an ossuary. Indeed, he shows us the ossuary, and one of us, armed with a pickaxe, began digging, trying to remove the thickness of the layer of accumulated bones, but bones and skulls are multiplied in the company of countless numbers of femurs (9 ).
During a second visit in 1908 Antoine Fages describes the landscape seen from the hilltop of Rennes:"We can see the layers of dark red Danian of Campagne, and south to Granès .... north to a place called Pastabrac. These soils are strongly characterized by the bones of Trilonosauro that are often associated with pieces of tortoise shell. [...] An excavation of three meters was begun in the South, and there an ossuary was discovered that extends for several hundred meters. The skeletons are flat and stacked on six / eight layers and oriented east to west. Monsieur Tisseyre found two bronze earrings. Is it a tomb dating back to ancient wars? The large quantity of bones found there does not offer great riches, and perhaps the future holds some interesting findings.(10)
Neither are these the only findings of significance (11).
The archaeological landscape, according to Christian Raynaud, is consistent with a settlement of the Paleolithic era right up to the top of the hill of Rennes-le-Château (12).
A discovery in the area of La Capello brought to light some tombs dating from the Late Neolithic (c. 3000 BC) and this is quoted in Memoires de l'Academie des arts et sciences de Carcassonne in the period 1931-1936. Unfortunately, no finding has come down to us, but only a description of a flint blade and an anthropomorphic statue "whose feet and head are separated by two horizontal stripes"(13). Stronger traces of the Neolithic period are found not far from Rennes-le-Château, on the hill called Casteillas , a natural promontory overlooking the valley through which the Couleurs river flows, and in this ancient thoroughfare there have been discovered shards of flint blades and the remains of a village dating back to 4000 BC, right in the Middle Neolithic: you can still see the remains of some stone walls (14).
The fact that there has never been a systematic excavation hinders a precise reconstruction of the various stages of settlement and growth of the first tribes. The presence of grinding stones and pottery dating from the Bronze Age and Iron Age (2000 to 50 BC) in a much wider area than that covered today is to assume an extension of the town larger than it is today, but only stratigraphic excavations will enable a better understanding of the organization and evolution of the habitation over the centuries. The valley of the Couleurs river has many traces of settlements in caves and in open air (15). At the end of the Iron Age, between 100 and 50 BC, Rennes acquires a much greater importance by being on a main trade route connecting the Roussillon and Aude valleys with l'Hers; via Peyrepertuse through Le Linas near Mount Bugarach, arriving at Le Bezu and on north-west through the valley in the foothills of Rennes and continuing north-west to Conhilac and Bouriège, branching off here: one part went west to Chalabre, the other north to Limoux (16).
And it is the mining of the Corbières - activities that can stimulate not only trade but also the influx of workers attracted by the prospect of certain enrichment - to give further impetus to ancient Rennes-le-Château, the entire area enjoyed a particularly high standard of living, witnessed by the influx of large numbers of amphorae of wine imported from Italy, fragments of which were found in quantity in the valley of the Couleurs river, plateau du Lauzet and several other towns in the area (17). The path "drawn" from the fragments of amphorae closely follows the route of the road that ran right next to Rennes.
Volques Tectosages or Redoni?
The identity of the inhabitants of the area of Rennes-le-Château before the Roman conquest is still unknown. Louis Fédié, Father Joseph-Théodore Lasserre (1833-1897) and Henri Boudet, proposed two different hypotheses, however, none of which is supported by documentary or archaeological evidence. Fédié believes that the area "was occupied by foreigners, by invaders and conquerors. These conquerors were not from the North, they would be stopped by too many obstacles along the way, they wouldnt try to overcome these obstacles just to come to occupy a corner of land. All evidence to the contrary, they came from the south, ie from the Iberian regions (1).
However Mr. Lasserre does assume an arrival from the north: "Four or five centuries before the birth of Christ, the Belgians & Cimbri tribes and others settled in northern Gaul. One of their most adventurous tribes, the Tectosagi, pushed themselves to the Garonne, finally settling in Toulouse. Lords of the river Aude, the Tectosagi established their home and mixed with the Atacini Celts, and were renamed Volques Tectosagi (2).
The Reverend Boudet, who on other occasions will write based on historical research of Lasserre is in agreement with him: " About 300 years before Christ, a powerful Northern confederation of the Belgian Cimbri, invades and takes possession of Gaul. Two Belgian tribes, the Volques Tectosagi and the Volques Arecomici crossed Gaul, weapons in hand, and invaded the South of France; Volques Tectosagi on the banks of the Garonne, in Toulouse, who built their capital, and Volques Arécomici, to East of the Cevennes, with their centre at Nimes.(3)
Boudet correctly cites the De Bello Gallico of Caesar about the Tectosagi: "There was a time when the Gauls surpassed the Germans in the value of a warrior and fought against them - the fields were no longer enough to feed an enlarging population so they sent colonies beyond the Rhine and therefore into the fertile lands of Germany, around the Hercynia forest; the Volques Tectosagi settled there after they conquered. Such people still occupies that territory (4) but a little later, in his study of the English roots of alleged Celtic words, the priest launches into one of his daring etymological interpretations: "Volkes (Volcae) stems from the verb to vault (vault), spinning, doing jumps and to cow (kaou), intimidate; Tectosagi is produced by two other verbs, to take to (Teke to), take pleasure in ..., and to sack , pillage, plunder. By combining the four verbs which are the roots of the two names; "In their distinct meanings, that Volques Tectosagi frightened their enemies with their rapidity of their manoeuvres in combat and their love of ravaging and plunder. (5)
A more consistent view in reality was offered by James Garzonio:"The name is a compound one - Tectosages bimembre: [...] sag- is a verbal root, which, undoubtedly, is the same one that underlies the ancient Irish saigid - research, sets out in search of and the Latin sagire . Regarding Tecto- it was traditionally compared with the ancient Irish techt, verbal noun of tíag- "go forward, go," and Welsh taith "journey", so the meaning of Tectosages (or rather, its descriptive value) would be "those who seek the wandering, the wish of wandering." Today we prefer to consider Tecto- in relation to the Old Irish verb techtaid "he possesses" (as a legal term "lawfully possess"), whose verbal noun techtad presents an abbreviated techt "possession, property." Following this path, the meaning of Tectosages is "those who are seeking possession of property."(6)
With a much less rigorous approach, the Reverend Boudet in his study lists a number of English words in dialect very similar to the corresponding languedocian, concluding: "It is therefore certain, from these examples, that the words are found in the Celtic language of the descendants of the Celts in Brittany and Languedoc. [...] This languedocian is an undeniable kinship between terms and their corresponding Anglo-Saxon, shows better than any reasoning that the Tectosagi of the South of France, emigrated beyond the Rhine, and Anglo Saxons are the very same people, and leads to logical consequence that the Anglo-Saxon language is precisely the language spoken by the Cimbrian family.(7)
Unlike what was deemed by Boudet, however, these etymological considerations are not sufficient to state with certainty that the Volques Tectosagi dominated the area where today stands Rennes-le-Château. Even Fédié categorically excluded them: "is the foundation of Rhedae perhaps due to that branch of Volques Tectosagi who lived along the banks of the Aude and who were called Atacini, named after the river ATAX? We think not. This population, spread over an extensive area, in a region covered with vast forests of oak and fir, would never abandon the valleys so favourable to the crops, which offered comfortable shelters and easy living conditions, thanks to the products of hunting and fishing. They would not ever leave this area where communications were easy and where you could escape the attacks of the detachments of the Roman armies, thanks to the caves and caverns in the rich soil. The Atacini would not have had any advantage to plant a Roman, a village or a town, on a plateau or give up a life that was easy & safe" (8).
The study of populations that preceded the Romans on the hill of Rennes-le-Château has recently been studied by Lizop (9), who in 1957 put forward the hypothesis that the origin of the name would be identical to that of the town of Rennes in Brittany: both derive from the Celtic people of the Redoni. Because of tribal fights, or having undergone migration because of invasions, some of the Redoni would cross to France and settled in the southern regions where there were already other Volques. The name Reda, the oldest name attested to the village of Rennes-le-Château, and the whole area - which in future will be called pagus redensis - was because the inhabitants derived their name from Redoni.
Le Casteillas - overlooking the hill of Rennes-le-Chateau
Notes: The Neolithic & Iron Age of Rennes-le-Chateau
1.Jean Fourié, L'Histoire de Rennes-le-Château antérieure à 1789, Esperaza: Editions Jean Bardou, 1984, p.25
2.Jean Paul Courrent & Philippe Héléna, Répertoire archéologique du département de l'Aude période
gallo-romaine, Montpellier: Impr. de la Charité, 1935
3.René Descadeillas, Mythologie du Trésor de Rennes, Editions Collot, 1974 (1991)
4.La Dépêche du Midi 16.3.1966 cit. in Pierre Jarnac, Les Archives de Rennes-le-Château, vol.I, Nice: Bélisane, 1987, pp.20-21
5.Cit. in Jean Fourié, L'Histoire de Rennes-le-Château antérieure à 1789, Esperaza: Editions Jean Bardou, 1984, p.16
6.Albert Salamon, "Rennes-le-Château: terre de squelettes" in La Dépêche du Midi3.10.1956 cit. in Pierre
Jarnac, Les Archives de Rennes-le-Château, vol.I, Nice: Bélisane, 1987, pp.7-8 e in Jean Fourié, L'Histoire de Rennes-le-Château antérieure à 1789, Esperaza: Editions Jean Bardou, 1984, p.16
7.Claire Corbu, Antoine Captier, L'héritage de l'Abbé Saunière, Nice: Bélisane, 1995, p.50. Alle pp.52-53 sono riportate due fotografie dello scheletro.
8.Jean Fourié, L'Histoire de Rennes-le-Château antérieure à 1789, Esperaza: Editions Jean Bardou, 1984, p.16
9.Elie Tisseyre, "Une excursion à Rennes-le-Château", Bulletin de la Société d'Etudes Scientifique de l'Aude, Vol.17 (1906)
10.Antoine Fagès, "De Campagne-les-Bains à Rennes-le-Château", Bulletin de la Société d'Etudes Scientifique de l'Aude, Vol.20 (1909)
11.Si veda, a questo proposito, il dettagliato elenco fornito in Jean Fourié, L'Histoire de Rennes-le-Château antérieure à 1789, Esperaza: Editions Jean Bardou, 1984, p.17
12.Jean Fourié, L'Histoire de Rennes-le-Château antérieure à 1789, Esperaza: Editions Jean Bardou, 1984, p.26
13.Cit. in Jean Fourié, L'Histoire de Rennes-le-Château antérieure à 1789, Esperaza: Editions Jean Bardou, 1984, p.26
14.Jean Fourié, L'Histoire de Rennes-le-Château antérieure à 1789, Esperaza: Editions Jean Bardou, 1984, p.27
15.Jean Fourié, L'Histoire de Rennes-le-Château antérieure à 1789, Esperaza: Editions Jean Bardou, 1984, p.27
16.Jean Fourié, L'Histoire de Rennes-le-Château antérieure à 1789, Esperaza: Editions Jean Bardou, 1984, p.28
Notes: Iberian Volques - Tectosages or Redoni?
1.Louis Fédié, Le Comté de Razès et le diocèse d'Alet, 1880 (primo capitolo riprodotto in Louis Fédié, Rhedae: la Cité des Chariots, Rennes-le-Château: Terre de Rhedae, 1994 ora nella traduzione
italiana di Roberto Gramolini in Indagini su Rennes-le-Château 13 (2007), pp.631-647
2.Joseph-Théodore Lasserre, Recherches Historiques sur la ville d'Alet et son ancien Diocèse, 1877 (ora nell'edizione Paris: Le Livre h'histoire-Lorisse, 2003), p.6
3.Henri Boudet, La Vraie Langue Celtique et le Cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains, Carcassonne: Imprimerie Pomies, 1886, p.4
4.Cesare, De Bello Gallico, Liber VI, cap.24 cit. in Henri Boudet, La Vraie Langue Celtique et le Cromleck de
Rennes-les-Bains, Carcassonne: Imprimerie Pomies, 1886, p.13
5.Henri Boudet, La Vraie Langue Celtique et le Cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains, Carcassonne: Imprimerie Pomies, 1886, p.14
6.Jacopo Garzonio, "Per l'interpretazione dell'etnonimo gallico Tectosages" in Studi Linguistici e Filologici On-line 1 (2003), pp.253 e segg.
7.Henri Boudet, La Vraie Langue Celtique et le Cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains, Carcassonne: Imprimerie Pomies, 1886, p.12 e p.22.
8.Louis Fédié, Le Comté de Razès et le diocèse d'Alet, 1880 (primo capitolo riprodotto in Louis Fédié, Rhedae: la Cité des Chariots, Rennes-le-Château: Terre de Rhedae, 1994 ora nella traduzione
italiana di Roberto Gramolini in Indagini su Rennes-le-Château 13 (2007), pp.631-647)
9.Raymond Lizop, "Un peuple gaulois inconnu dans la haute Vallée de l'Aude?" in Annales du Mudi, t.69, n.38, aprile 1957, pp.159-167 ora in Patrick Mensior, Parle-moi de Rennes-le-Château, 2 (dicembre 2005), pp.57-65.
With thanks to Mariano Tomatis for permission to translate the pages