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Origin and history

The Panissars Pass, located 325 m above sea level in the Pyrénées-Orientales, marks the border between France and Spain. It was a strategic place of passage from Prehistory, linking the plains of Roussillon and Empordà. In 71 B.C., known as Summum Pyrenaeum, it became the junction point between Via Domitia (to Gaul) and Via Augusta (to Hispania). Pompey erected the Pompey Trophy there to celebrate his victory in Hispania, symbolically marking the border between the two Roman provinces. This monument, the first of its kind, served as a model for the Alpine trophies and was mentioned in several ancient texts.

The remains of the trophy, built in large blocks of marine sandstone, were gradually dismantled to serve as a career. As early as the fourth century, the late Roman fortifications of the Perthus Pass used its stones. In the 11th century, the construction of a Benedictine priory dedicated to Sainte-Marie, on the road to Santiago de Compostela, completed to make disappear a large part of the ancient remains. The material requirements for Bellegarde Fort (17th century), designed by Vauban, contributed to their almost total erasure.

The site was rediscovered in 1983 after centuries of unsuccessful research along the Domitian Way. The excavations revealed the foundations of the trophy, organized in steps according to a Greek technique, as well as the ruins of the medieval priory. The latter, consecrated in 1011 and became priory at the end of the 11th century, included a nave, an elevated apse, an crypt and a fore-nef. The site, classified as Historical Monument in 2010, illustrates both the Roman heritage and the medieval transformations of this Pyrenean crossroads.

The Panissars Pass was also the scene of historical confrontations, like the battle of 1285 between Philippe the Hardi of France and Pierre the Great Aragon, ending the crusade of Aragon. Today, the archaeological site, protected on both sides of the border, bears witness to the strategic and symbolic importance of this passage between Gaul and Hispania, from antiquity to the Middle Ages.

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