Gisacum Archaeological Site (Gisacum)

Gisacum is the ONLY city in the entire Roman world with a hexagonal urban layout. The hexagonal ring road was 5.6 km long with a diameter of 1.8 km, and all residential areas were pushed to the perimeter, leaving the center completely empty except for monumental religious buildings - a radical urban planning concept never replicated elsewhere in the Empire.

Despite covering 250 hectares at its peak - making it one of the largest cities in Roman Gaul - Gisacum was NOT an administrative capital. It was purely a sanctuary city dedicated to the god Gisacus (likely assimilated to Apollo), serving as a regional religious and leisure center where pilgrims came for worship and entertainment at the massive theater that could seat 10,000 spectators.

The great drought of 1976 revolutionized knowledge of the site when aerial photography revealed numerous previously unknown structures hidden beneath the ground. This discovery dramatically expanded understanding of Gisacum's true extent, showing that after over 175 years of excavations since 1801, the vast majority of the 250-hectare site still remains unexcavated and continues to yield new discoveries every year.