Lac de Sanguinet (étang de Cazaux-Sanguinet) et le village immergé de Losa

Sanguinet

On the border of the Landes and the Gironde, a large lake hides whole villages under the water. It formed when a belt of dunes dammed the valley of the Gourgue, which ran to the ocean. A Gallo-Roman temple was discovered there in 1970; a dugout canoe was found in 1976. Since 1978, volunteer divers of the CRESS have been excavating five sites, dated from about 1800 BC to the 3rd century AD. The most recent, Losa, 5 m down, was a staging post (mansio) on the Roman road from Bordeaux to Dax, where the road crossed the Gourgue on a long bridge. The village was built around a fanum, a small temple of which only the foundations remain: in 2001 it was recognised that its stones are ‘bog iron’, from which a researcher even smelted iron. Near the bridge, about 180 coins of the 4th century were found. The site of Estey du Large shows the whole chain of iron manufacture. No legend of a drowned town was found in the pages read: the rising of the waters is presented there as a physical fact. The place is retained for its attested history: a sanctuary and a Roman road now under water.

Getting there: The lake is freely accessible by its beaches (Sanguinet, Cazaux). The submerged sites cannot be visited by free diving: the finds can be seen at the Musée du Lac - Archéologie (112 place de la Mairie, Sanguinet; paying, prices to be checked, guided tours in French). Coordinates: centre of the lake in OpenStreetMap; the precise position of Losa was not verified.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound