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Temples 'Sichelen 2 & 3'

Motorway construction - both a curse and a blessing Beneath the present-day motorway, a small temple district once lay to the southwest of Augusta Raurica. Two 'Gallo-Roman square temples' had to be excavated here in a short space of time during the construction of the motorway. Nothing remains of them today.

- Temples and sancutaries - Gallo-Roman square temples on Schönbühl - Gallo-Roman square temples "Sichelen 2 & 3"
"Sichelen 2" today		"Sichelen 2" in Roman times:
"Sichelen 3" today		"Sichelen 3" in Roman times (temple on the left)
In the middle of the route of the present-day motorway, 50 metres east of the intersecting road bridge, the remains of a temple had to be excavated in 1962, which had already been known to exist from aerial photographs ('Sichelen 2'). An ambulatory (portico) measuring 20 by 22 metres and flanked on all sides by six columns lengthways and four widthways, stood in a large 'sacred district' enclosed by a wall. The high, roofed cella, the sanctum with the statue of a god, stood in the centre. The Sichelen 2 complex is unique in its cultural fusion of indigenous Celtic and foreign Roman cultures: The architects obviously sought to design a compromise between a Celtic square temple with portico and a Roman podium temple with a monumental flight of steps. Only 80 metres further on, to the south of the motorway, stood a smaller temple with a simpler design ('Sichelen 3'). Its ground plan too was almost square shaped and it also boasted a columned hall. This was the starting point of an arc of at least ten square temples lining the western periphery of the town via "Sichelen 1" to Schönbühl hill in the mid 1st century AD.
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