 From top to bottom and left to right:
the Mazelles ruins ; the Pouillé temple and a collection of fibulae at the Thésée archaeological museum. | |
  Tasciaca Shown within France | |
| Location | Roman Empire |
|---|---|
| Region | Gallia Lugdunensis Centre-Val de Loire |
| Coordinates | 47°19′37″N 1°18′16″E / 47.32694°N 1.30444°E |
Tasciaca was an ancient vicus (secondary settlement) characterized by a series of Gallo-Roman settlements located in the communes of Thésée, Pouillé, and Monthou-sur-Cher, on either side of the Cher River, in the French department of Loir-et-Cher in the Centre-Val de Loire region.
Tasciaca appears on the Peutinger table, designating a stopover from Avaricum (Bourges) to Caesarodunum (Tours). The settlement, on the border of the civitates of the Turons, Carnutes, and Bituriges Cubes, seems to have been developing since the beginning of our era; it was very active during the High Empire, with significant production of common ceramics, glassware, and metal objects, before declining from the 2nd century onwards, without however being abandoned under the Merovingians.
On the left bank of the Cher, the site includes a fanum, a basin with a possibly religious role and at least one well, some 40 potter's kilns whose ceramics are found in several archaeological sites in the Centre-Val de Loire region, as well as other facilities with less well-documented functions, such as buildings with multiple rooms, several fords (although they cannot be dated), perhaps two piers and a hypothetical bridge in the Cher riverbed. The best-known feature of the site, however, is the Mazelles (or Maselles) complex, a monumental group of buildings on the right bank of the Cher, possibly linked to navigation on the river or road traffic, the largest of which has a footprint of almost fifty meters long by some twenty meters wide. Other remains, possibly including a temple, identified in the early 2000s to the west of the site previously located in Thésée and Pouillé, show that Tasciaca appears to have extended downstream into the neighboring commune of Monthou-sur-Cher, stretching for over two kilometers along the Cher. Everything remains to be discovered about the heart of this agglomeration, its public buildings, and its function(s).
The Roman ruins at Les Mazelles, owned by the Loir-et-Cher departmental council, are listed as a historic monument in the 1840 list. The fanum and kiln area at Pouillé, owned by the same local authority, is in a protected archaeological zone, but some of its remains are in an advanced state of deterioration.