Resumen de Les installations portuaires romaines d’Irun/'Oiasso' (Pays basque, Espagne) : entre équipement fonctionnel et façade urbaine

María Mercedes Urteaga Artigas

• français

  Cet article porte sur les caractéristiques des installations portuaires et sur leurs relations avec la monumentalisation de la polis d’Oiasso. En effet, à la fin du ier s. apr. J.-C. s’engage un vaste processus de transformation urbaine, marqué notamment par la mise en place d’une terrasse horizontale de 600 m de long pour 350 m de large. Sur l’esplanade nouvellement établie – suite à la suppression des reliefs marquants et au remblaiement de certaines irrégularités avec ce même matériau extrait –, l’établissement de la trame urbaine s’effectua selon un plan régulier et avec l’ajout d’éléments caractéristiques comme des thermes publics. C’est durant cette phase de réaménagement urbain que la construction d’importantes infrastructures portuaires fut également entreprise. À ce jour, les informations ont été récoltées sur trois zones portuaires et sur une demi-douzaine d’installations, permettant de distinguer les quais, les quais secs, les jetées, les rampes et les petites plates-formes. Il est frappant de constater que, dans certains cas, ces constructions ont été bâties au bord d’un estuaire où les bateaux ne pouvaient accéder qu’à marée haute, lorsque l’eau atteignait un certain niveau. L’utilisation de ce port était donc limitée à une période relativement courte et variable en fonction des cycles lunaires. Par conséquent, il est envisageable que ces structures aient été construites comme une contribution au projet de monumentalisation urbaine.

• English

  In the border town of Irun/Oiasso (Basque Country, Spain), located on the left bank and 6 km from the mouth of the Bidasoa River, evidence of the first Roman port on the Iberian Peninsula and in the Bay of Biscay were discovered in 1992. This discovery marked a turning point in the recognition of the Roman past within Basque territories of the Atlantic coast. Their presence had until then been denied or considered marginal. The breadth of archaeological evidence found in Irun has given significant visibility to the existence of different types of port facilities and this research has extended to other geographic areas. To date, information has been obtained on three harbor areas and a half a dozen other facilities, and allows for differentiation between dry docks, breakwater jetties, slipway jetties and small platforms. The archaeological context is also very rich, composed of thousands of ceramic fragments and other important collections, including wooden objects, seed and textile remains... Archaeological endeavors were not limited to the port area; indeed, they were undertaken across the entirety of the historic center of Irun according to the tenets and methods of rescue archeology. In this environment, significant remains of urban constructions were discovered, including, most importantly, the traces of a substantial urban remodeling that took place at the end of the 1st c. AD. It was a process of comprehensive transformation, that created a horizontal terrace 600 m long and 350 m wide: for which, the unequal terrain was levelled, surplus soil from hilly areas being used to raise depressed levels. On this flattened ground the settlement was built following an ordered layout and including characteristic elements of this kind of urban environment, such as public bathhouses. The port facilities are contemporary to one another and prior to these constructions, the shores of the estuary were previously lacking in such infrastructure. Micropaleontological studies on benthic foraminifera present in the sediments collected during the archaeological excavations, trace the evolution of sedimentation and shed light on the process of filling these harbor zones. Analysis of the tidal cycles allows us to understand that, in some cases such as the Tadeo Murgia multi-level dock, the facilities were built on the edge of the estuary, in an area accessible only at high tide. Its use was therefore limited to a relatively short period and varied depending on the lunar cycles. These observations have led to the suggestion that these installations may have been built as contributions toward the development of monumentality within the settlement.