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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The Verduron is a fortified Celto-ligure dwelling, founded at the end of the third century BC and abandoned at the beginning of the second century BC, on a hill at +195 m above sea level in the 15th arrondissement of Marseilles. This 1,200 m2 site, locally known as "sugar bread", controlled a protohistoric path leading to the Estaque and the Marignane plain. Its plan combines a summital square of 12 x 12 m (often wrongly called "turn") and a sloped trapezoid, girded by a wall of stone-bound walls of clay, thick from 0.8 to 1 m. Access was through a fortified south-east gate.

The pre-Roman habitat, organized in 36 terraced cells, reveals a major earthwork to adapt the steep relief. Archaeologists have identified areas of heated stone, suggesting the use of fire to facilitate rock flow. Two internal streets, parallel to a north-south longitudinal wall, served cells attached to the wall or wall. No trace of redevelopment was found, confirming a brief occupation and violent destruction by catapults, possibly linked to conflicts with the Greeks of Massalia (Ancient Marseille) or Rome.

Discovered in 1905 by the sculptor Stanislas Clastrier during clearings, the site was searched until 2005. The exhumed objects (iron tools, engraved stones) and the regular structure (subrectangular enclosures with aligned cells) led the researchers to see a fortified farm or occupied barracks around 200 BC. Ranked Historic Monument in 2004, the oppidum remains threatened, as evidenced by an article by Marsactu (2017) alerting about its risk of burial. Its role as a limit of the Massalite chora (Ancient Marseille territory) and its destruction could reflect a takeover of the territory by the Phocean city.

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