Amphoralis, Archaeological museum in Sallèles-d'Aude, France.
Amphoralis is an archaeological museum in Sallèles-d'Aude built on the grounds of an ancient pottery workshop where craftspeople produced vessels, bricks, and roof tiles. The site displays reconstructed kilns, workshop areas, and more than 700 ceramic pieces from different periods of ancient production.
The pottery workshop operated from the 1st to the 3rd century CE, producing wine amphorae in large quantities from the mid-1st century. Excavations began in 1976 under CNRS archaeologist Fanette Laubenheimer and continued for nearly 25 years, ending in 1997. The first child tomb was found in 1985, eight more the following year and four in 1987, thirteen in all.
The workshops reveal how artisans created vessels for wine transport using techniques passed down through generations. This craft tradition shaped life in the region and made it a major center of ceramic production in ancient times.
The visit starts at a small museum shop and passes through an arboretum before a main path leads to the museum above the excavation. Two galleries cross the digs, and an outer path circles them, then follows the aqueduct past experimental reconstructions of a bread oven, two pottery kilns and a potters' quarter. The site lies by the Canal du Midi, about 2 km north-west of Sallèles-d'Aude.
The site includes an arboretum at the start of the visit, where the plants of the region are described along the path. Excavations from 1976 onward also uncovered thirteen tombs of very young children, aged at most six to nine months, laid in tile cists beside a building wall.
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