Asterix's Gauls `more civilised' than portrayed in comics

The London News.Net
Monday 3rd September, 2007 (ANI)

London, Sept.3 : European archaeologists believe that the ancient tribe of Gauls, including France's cockiest comic Gaul character, Asterix, were more civilised that what has been famously portrayed in comics.

A discovery in central France is said to be at the root of this significant reassessment of the Gauls.

The Gauls did nto live in rudimentary thatched huts as illustrated in the Asterix books, first published in 1961. They apparently lived in elegant buildings with tiled roofs, and had well appointed towns with public squares or forums. They also crafted metalwork just as complex as anything produced by the Romans, even before the Roman invasion in 52BC.

The findings have been made at a dig in Corent, near Lyon. Archaeologists believe they have found the palace of Vercingetorix, the last military leader of all Gauls. Vercingetorix, a prince, was held in a prison in Rome and garroted several years later to celebrate Caesar's triumph.

"What we have found here proves that the Gauls were much more civilised than we thought," Matthieu Poux, the archaeology professor who is heading the dig, told The Sunday Telegraph.

"The Asterix albums will need to be completely rewritten, as they are based on the typical image of the Gauls which has been passed down through the centuries, one of a prehistoric man who lives in the forest. We have discovered that they had not only complex military structures, but civilian and trading structures too. Until now Gauls for the French were people who lived in huts among the trees, frightening people. Parents would threaten to send their children to the Gauls if they did not go to sleep. But we have discovered large buildings and public spaces which prove there were Gauls of considerable social standing, Poux added.

Poux's team has uncovered previously unknown building techniques, elaborate foundations and tiled roofing which together suggest that the architecture in Gaul was just as advanced as that in Rome around 80 to 70BC.

Gaul's leaders, it would seem, were a far cry from the buffoon cartoon character Abraracourcix (Vitalstatistix in the English version), the chief of Asterix's tribe.

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