Vostrus Stele

The Vostrus Stele is a Roman funerary stele discovered in 1861 in Lisieux, France. It belongs to the collections of the Société des antiquaires de Normandie and, after having been conserved in the museum of this learned society, it is now part of the permanent exhibition of the Musée d'archéologie et d'ethnographie de Caen; an early cast is kept in the Musée d'art et d'histoire de Lisieux. The monument is the only funerary stele to have survived from the excavations of the Grand-Jardin necropolis, a site explored in the second half of the 19th century under conditions that are still poorly understood. Despite losses due to the dispersal of excavated material and bombardment during the Battle of Normandy in 1944, artefacts recovered in the course of this research are preserved in various museums. In addition to a monument depicting a man, the artefact also contains an inscription, the reading of which is widely accepted. The figure's clothing, adapted to local weather conditions, suggests a Romanized Gaul. Study of the inscription, with the typically Gallic name of the deceased's father and the absence of the tria nomina typical of Roman citizens, dates the piece to the 1st century. This is one of the very few surviving funerary monuments from the Roman period in this region, and according to Élisabeth Deniaux, writing in 1984-1985, it is “the most remarkable Roman funerary ense

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