LOST GALLIC CITY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21456, 1 April 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

LOST GALLIC CITY

REMNANT OF HISTORY A lost Gallic city, hidden away on an unexplored plateau in the A " ver ß" e country, has been discovered accidentally by* tlio well-known French painter. M. Maurice Busset. The city is Gergovni, where Vercingetorex in 52 B.C. inflicted the crushing defeat on Julius Caesar which led to the rising of thp Cauls in their last struggle for independence against the power of Rome. It is estimated that it was capable.of housing 30.000. , ~ M Busset has for years taken long solitary walks in his native Auvergne, armed onlv with his paints and easel. Last March he climbed the lonely mountains within a mile of Clermont until with difficulty lie reached a basalt plateau, Whose uninviting bleakness has left it undisturbed by the foot of man, probably for centuries. As the artist walked along the plateau he noticed traces of ancient buildings and pottery. Returning secretly day after day he has laid bare in the course of months stone huts, the walls of fortifications on a four and a-half mile circle, watering places for cattle, a circular road twelve feet wide, towers, gates, bastions, and dozens of houses built in the hard dry stone described ia Caesar's pommentaries.