Village des Bories

[2] The word “Borie” originates from an 18th-century place name – “Les Borrys”, in the Bouches-du-Rhône département – that was mistakenly construed as meaning “dry stone hut” by a mid 19th-century scholar.

The emergence of the outlying hamlet of “Les Savournins” dates back to a wide scale campaign of land clearing and cultivation that took place in 18th-century Provence, following a 1766 royal edict.

[4] The potsherds found in the huts and fields during the restoration work of the 1970s are characteristic of the earthenware manufactured in the Apt, Vaucluse, region in the 18th-19th centuries.

[6] Out of the 28 stone buildings still extant on the site, The prevalence of the “Gordoise nave”, together with the use of mortarless masonry, lends the hamlet a certain architectural unity.

The “Village des Bories” comprises several “groups” of “cabanes” which are distributed across the areas North and South of a lane that runs through the site.

At a place known originally as “Les Savournins Bas” in Gordes , the open-air museum created by Pierre Viala in 1976 under the name of “Village des Bories”.
“Les Savournins Bas“ in the Napoleonic land register. Only the designations “cabane“, “sol de cabane“,“sol de maison“ are used, the word “borie“ is nowhere to be found. Although the buildings appear sketchily drawn, their outlines show that they were fewer than in the present-day configuration.
Pierre Viala’s “Village des Bories”. The edifices drawn in dotted lines are those that appear to be missing from the 1809 land register.
Group of buildings No 4 as per Pierre Viala’s classification, with, from left to right, a dwelling with silkworm-breeding facility, a sheep shelter-cum-byre, and a store house.
Interior of the sheep shelter-cum-byre of Group No 4.