These campaigns, carried out from 2000 to 2004 under the direction of Dominique Tardy and Jean-Louis Paillet, made it possible to complete a precise architectural survey, and modern excavation techniques have enabled significant advancements of knowledge about the site.

Frédéric Trément, who excavated the site between 1999 and 2003, stated prior to the restoration that he was not consulted for the project and that, "the proposed reconstruction has the paradoxical consequence of making these ruins invisible behind an imposing and hideous Berlin Wall."

The 2nd-century temple was built on a strong terrace, a quadrilateral with 60-meter sides allowing it to compensate the slope of the ground descending from north to south.

The raw material was extracted near the Ceyssat pass, located at the foot of the Puy de Dôme, but the decoration called on other types of stone with more distant origins—white and colored marbles for the pavements, Autun shales, and arkose column capitals, for example.

This cella and pronaos ensemble was located at the top of a series of terraces, intended to punctuate and dramatize the visitor's journey.

Thus the pilgrim, after a steep climb from the Ceyssat pass, and perhaps devotions made at the chapels along the path, would arrive upon a terrace that rose up in tiers and was occupied by altars and statues.

From this theater, which could be used for specific ceremonies, the pilgrim would then take a passage that led to the eastern terrace overlooking Augustonemetum and the plain of Limagne.

During the 1974 excavations, a small bronze tablet with dovetailed handles was discovered, bearing a dedication to imperial power and the god Mercury "Dumiatis".

Miltenberg (CIL 13, 6603) MERCVRIO ARVERNORIC[I] COSSILLUS DONAVI ES VISV L(A)ETVS LIBE(N)S MERITOThis dedication can be translated as: "To Mercury, king of the Arverni.

The dedications are a product of Gallo-Roman syncretism, meaning that - except during official Roman ceremonies, celebrated by expatriate settlers - the "Mercury" worshipped here was not identical with that of Rome.

But all the gigantic statues of this class have been beaten in our period by Zenodorus with the Hermes or Mercury which he made in the community of the Arverni in Gaul; it took him ten years and the sum paid for its making was 40,000,000 sesterces.

Having given sufficient proof of his artistic skill in Gaul he was summoned to Rome by Nero, and there made the colossal statue, 106 ft. high, intended to represent that emperor but now, dedicated to the sun after the condemnation of that emperor's crimes, it is an object of awe[13].He does not specify whether the Zenodorus Mercury was erected in the sanctuary of Puy de Dôme.

According to the hypothesis where Zenodorus' statue was actually there, it could have been erected with the first temple, whose archaeological vestiges were largely destroyed during the construction of the microwave relay in 1956.

The term "Jaude" designating the district where the Clermont ruins are found would be related to "Galate" via a Medieval form "Jalde".

[15] However it has also been argued that the Bishop of Tours' description of the Vasso Galate seems to agree better with the plan and ornamentation of the Puy de Dôme sanctuary.

[16] The Puy de Dôme sanctuary was serviced by a path that started from the Roman road linking Lugdunum (Lyon) to Mediolanum Santonum (Saintes), at the level of the Ceyssat Pass.

[18] The very name of the Arverni capital in Roman times, Augustonemetum, "Sanctuary of Augustus", suggests the presence of an imperial cult within the city.

This imperial cult, however, did not leave any tangible traces and the only sanctuary attested is that whose remains are called Mur des Saracens, located at rue Rameau in Clermont-Ferrand and identified, without the debate being settled, as the Vasso Galate mentioned by Gregory of Tours.

This sanctuary, the site of Beauclair on the territory of the municipalities of Giat and Voingt, produced graffiti naming the god Toutatis.