Cherré is the site of the archaeological excavation of a Gallo-Roman complex of 20 hectares from the 1st to the 3rd centuries A.D. It is situated in the town Aubigné-Racan, in the Sarthe département of western France, in the région Pays de la Loire.

The site, at the crossroads of the territories of the Andecavi, the Aulerci Cenomani, and the Turones, is initially a necropolis from the Hallstatt and then La Tène periods, comprising megaliths, tumuli, burials, and ritual weapon deposits. The necropolis is likely related to a fortified promontory located nearby. The Gallo-Roman complex, whose construction began towards the end of the 1st century, reached its peak in the 2nd and 3rd centuries and then extended over more than forty hectares. However, it does not appear to have been permanently occupied, as evidenced by the lack of clear traces of habitation or structured roadways. During this period, the Cherré complex is described as a "secondary agglomeration with predominantly religious functions", dedicated to the imperial cult or a warrior cult, serving as a place for seasonal, commercial, and religious gatherings. Its use ceased in the 4th century. Its monuments, thereafter abandoned, were used as a stone quarry for new constructions in the Middle Ages, particularly Romanesque churches. Its ruins, located on the right bank of the Loir River, were known as early as the beginning of the 18th century, but it was only formally identified as an ancient site in 1875, with in-depth studies beginning in the 1970s.

State-led excavations, undertaken in 1976 by Claude Lambert and Jean Rioufreyt and continued until 2006, uncovered the Hallstatt necropolis, an ancient theater with three thousand seats, a building possibly serving a dual purpose ( and macellum), two temples, one of which is externally quite similar to the Maison Carrée in Nîmes, Roman baths, and an aqueduct supplying the entire site. Other buildings, whose functions are unknown, have been located but remain to be studied.

Cherré is a since 1975. The theater was classified as a historic monument in 1982, and in 1991, all other remains were protected by listing. The site is owned by the , which, since the second half of the 2000s, has been making improvements to facilitate access to the ancient ruins and provide better information to the public.

Location and environment

The Cherré site is located in the far south of the department of Sarthe, near Indre-et-Loire and Maine-et-Loire. It is situated, as the crow flies, southwest of the communal capital of Aubigné-Racan, on either side of the road connecting Vaas to the east with Le Lude to the west. The Aubigné-Racan hamlet is from Le Mans and from Laval.

Spanning more than from north to south, it covers over forty hectares at an altitude gradually decreasing from at the level of the theater and market-forum to near the baths.. A rocky ridge, peaking at an altitude of , overlooks the complex to the west, and its southern end was fortified during the Bronze Age. Its area lies within a large meander on the right bank of the Loir River, which flows away; a marshy area occupied part of the site during ancient times, particularly around the large temple and further south towards the Loir..

In the neighboring commune of Coulongé, there are deposits of sandstone, primarily a Cenomanian reddish roussard sandstone, used for the first phase of monument construction,Claude Lambert et Jean Rioufreyt, "Aubigné-Racan - Coulongé : l'aqueduc antique" [Aubigné-Racan-Coulongé: the ancient aqueduct] (in French), Bilan scientifique 2001, 2005, 116 p., p. 64-65. as well as a whiter sandstone used during renovations or expansions in the 2nd century.. Sandstone was preferred over the tuffeau that forms the Loir hillside on its left bank.. A quarry near the Laval agglomeration likely supplied cut limestone blocks in pink for several Gallo-Roman monuments at the Cherré site, particularly for their decorative elements..

The discovery of a via romana, called the "Roman Road," whose use continued into the Early Middle Ages, and which crosses the commune of Saulges in a straight line along the road to Chenu, raises several hypotheses.. The may indicate a junction of a road network, heading northwest downstream of the Loir River crossing. This route, though located at a connection point, retains its original orientation to reach Vindunum (Le Mans) on one hand and Chenu on the other. Although the remains of this ancient route are discontinuous, the direction of one of its two branches suggests it passes through the northwest area of the Aubigné-Racan commune. Recent archaeological prospection work in this Sarthe region (arrondissement of La Flèche and canton of Le Lude), confirms that Vaas, near Cherré, is crossed by an ancient road linking to Cæsarodunum (present-day Tours). The remains of this Gallo-Roman route, though partial, have been clearly identified in the Vaas territory at the place called "Gué de La Pierre".

In 2001, a bust of a putto in bronze (likely an applique, high), currently housed at the in Le Mans, was discovered by chance.. east-southeast of Cherré, on the left bank of the Loir, at "la Bodinière" (Vaas). Dated to the first half of the 1st century, it is comparable to finds from the ancient sites of Berrouaghia in Algeria or Volubilis archaeological site in Morocco.. Following this discovery, and despite the site being partially disturbed by the establishment of the railway line connecting Aubigné-Racan to Sablé-sur-Sarthe in 1863, a Roman villa, possibly belonging to a notable who contributed to the construction of part of the Gallo-Roman complex, was discovered through surveys conducted by Claude Lambert and Jean Rioufreyt in 2004.. It consists of two buildings symmetrically framing a central courtyard; the bronze applique, likely imported from the region of Rome or Alexandria, attests to its decorative opulence.

Toponymy

Eugène Vallée and Robert Latouche, in their Dictionnaire topographique du département de la Sarthe published in 1952, note for Cherré, in the commune of Aubigné-Racan, the mentions of the Hubert Jaillot map (Cherray in 1706), the Cassini map (Cheré around 1765), then those of the (Cheray in 1820–1866), and finally the mention of Cherray in a text by François Liger in 1896. The same authors, along with Ernest Nègre,. also mention two very old references, Karaico in a document from 616 and decima de Cherreio in 1170; Vallée and Latouche attribute these toponyms to Cherré, a commune bordering La Ferté-Bernard,. following Thomas Cauvin (1845).. A study conducted in the early 2000s by Jean-Pierre Brunterc'h, chief heritage conservator, shows that the assimilation of Kariacus (corrected form of Karaico) to Cherré (Aubigné-Racan) is a plausible hypothesis..

The toponym may derive from the Latin term or , whose Gallic equivalent is , or from the Latin , meaning "cart", "chariot", or "cart".. The term, combined with the suffix -iacum or -iacus to form "Carriacus" (or Kariacus) and , a Latin declension, is attested in some texts by Pliny the Elder and generally refers to a two-wheeled cart or a plow.. This word can also be accompanied by the Latin declensions -a or -ulum.. This term encompasses notions related to "transport", particularly for economic purposes. It would thus indicate the proximity of a frequented ancient or medieval road used by carts and chariots,. or, more precisely, a "path used by carts"..

Prehistory to contemporary period

Neolithic and protohistory

Permanent human presence in the south of Sarthe dates back at least to the Neolithic. A megalithic complex, the , excavated in the 1970s at Saint-Germain-d'Arcé, was used as a burial site at the end of the fourth millennium BCE. Numerous other dolmens or menhirs are reported in Aubigné-Racan. and in neighboring communes, such as Vaas (.) or Dissay-sous-Courcillon, as well as several protohistoric enclosures.

On the edge of the site, mounds have been reported. These cultic sites, dated to the end of the Bronze Age and the "Hallstatt A1" period, appear to have been erected with the aim of "appropriating the surrounding territory"..

At south-southwest of the place called Aubignanais, a promontory, the "Vaux camp," was occupied as early as the 7th century BCE;. it overlooks the Loir. Its fortification phase is accompanied, to the northeast and in the valley, at the Cherré site, by the creation of a Bronze Age and Hallstatt necropolis. This necropolis, where weapons used in ritual deposits were found, was established at the crossroads of three Gallic territories: that of the Turones to the southeast, the Aulerci Cenomani to the north, and the Andecavi to the southwest,. as did the Pictones and Turones.

Even if it is less visible during the Iron Age due to the absence of architectural remains, the commercial role of the site within the valley is significant and it intensified after the Roman conquest. By the end of this period, during La Tène "B2" and "C1", Cherré was fully part of the Cenomanian territory..

Antiquity

In Antiquity, the site became a vicus of Roman Gaul, located away from the main communication route linking Caesarodunum (Tours) to Vindunum (Le Mans) via Vaas and from the one that, passing through Le Lude and Coulongé to the west, connects Le Mans to Poitiers. It was served at that time by several secondary roads or paths, likely inherited from the Protohistory, and the Loir River was navigable.. The monumental decoration was established in the second half of the 1st century. Expansions and modifications were carried out less than a hundred years later on each of the studied monuments. At the beginning of the imperial period, apart from those at Cherré and Sainte-Gemmes-sur-Loire (a city belonging to the of the Andecavi), few sites in western Gaul benefited from the establishment of such a complete monumental decoration. It was during this period, in the Flavian period, that the Aubigné-Racan place name experienced significant political and administrative development of an aedile type. Occupation continued intensively until the end of the 3rd century. These ceramic pieces, distributed across a vast region roughly covering the Sarthe territory, and whose production is attributed to the 2nd–3rd centuries CE, come from a significant pottery workshop located in the current commune of La Bosse. During this period, Cherré likely hosted seasonal commercial events as well as celebrations of the Roman imperial cult. The absence of organized roadways and remains of habitation rules out, a priori, permanent occupation..

Various factors may explain the abandonment of the site between the end of the 3rd century and the beginning of the 4th century: insecurity, the economic and political crisis, and the emergence of Christianity.

Middle Ages