The Bibracte museum

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How can a town like Bibracte, which only lived for a hundred years, be so representative of a pivotal period in history? This is what you will discover when you visit the museum, located at the foot of the archaeological site.

Opening dates and times

In 2024, open every day from 16 March to 11 November, from 10am to 6pm.
In July and August, open from 9.30am to 7pm.

BIBRACTE AND BEYOND

We invite you to step back in time two millennia and immerse yourself in a pivotal period that saw the appearance of large settlements in a vast area of temperate Europe, the structuring of territories and the intensification of craft production and trade.

Bibracte is a perfect example of what is known as an oppidum, a vast fortified town that suddenly appeared in the 2nd century BC, along with two hundred others built in an immense territory stretching from the Atlantic to central Europe, which we usually call Celtic Europe, even though it is impossible to affirm that the inhabitants of this vast area recognised a common identity.

Who were the inhabitants of these oppida? How was their society organised? How have archaeologists contributed to the reappearance of this key phase in the urbanisation of Europe? And above all, how can we explain the many similarities between these sites, which are hundreds of kilometres apart? The museum answers all these questions.

All the objects presented are contemporary with Bibracte. Some have been borrowed from European museums, or copied from some of their most emblematic pieces. Many are from the excavations carried out on Mont Beuvray. All of them provide a portrait of Bibracte and its period, characterised by a profusion of agricultural, industrial, commercial, political and religious activities.

Combined with models, plans, photographs and digital devices, they also reveal different aspects of the archaeologists' work.

In addition to the permanent exhibition, the Bibracte Museum offers a temporary exhibition each year that sheds light on a new archaeological theme.

THE COURSE

On the first floor, the visit begins with a presentation of the conditions that made possible the emergence of the oppida, these fortified towns that suddenly appeared in the 2nd century BC, over an immense territory stretching from the Atlantic to Central Europe. Using objects from various European museums (originals or copies), as well as models and documents that allow us to visualise emblematic sites of the late Iron Age, the exhibition explains the intensification of agricultural production and the industrialisation of the exploitation, transformation and circulation of raw materials that took place at the end of the Iron Age, before highlighting the salient features common to the oppida.

On the lower floor, you will get to know Bibracte, with its ramparts, its craftsmen's workshops, its houses, its public spaces, its necropolis and all the signs that allow us to perceive the indications of its early Romanisation.

In addition to the many objects from recent excavations, photographs of the site, plans and life-size reconstructions will help you understand the archaeologist's approach and the results of a century and a half of excavations and scientific research, from the site to the object.

VIRTUAL GALLERY

Enter the virtual gallery and discover more than 150 objects from the museum's collections and Bibracte's world, brought together in an unprecedented interactive exploration.

CLICK HERE

AND BIBRACTE COMES BACK TO LIFE...

Enter the black box. In the centre of the upper gallery, a large model of Mount Beuvray awaits you, animated with sound and digital images.

You go back in time: the forest that covers the hill disappears, giving way to Bibracte's first excavators, at the end of the 19th century. Under their trowel and before your eyes, a whole town is brought to light, with its streets, districts and workshops. After a break of 80 years, the archaeologists returned to the site and have been excavating previously unexplored areas every year since then.

It was then discovered that the oppidum, initially a town of earth and wood surrounded by ramparts, was trying to transform itself into a Roman town by covering itself with dozens of stone buildings, covered with tiled roofs and faithful to the canons of Roman architecture. The experiment came up against the topography. The Aeduan people, whose capital was Bibracte, transferred it to another site shortly before the change of era. This was the new town of Augustodunum (Autun), where all the inhabitants of Bibracte moved. Once again, the forest took over Mount Beuvray...

THE TOWN'S ARCHIVES

On the floor below, "The town's archives" allow you to take your own journey through the visible or buried remains of Bibracte, on an interactive map drawn on the ground.

Take a digital tablet, point it at the map and fly over Mount Beuvray in 3D to consult dozens of archives, surveys or photos of some forty remarkable sectors of the site.

You can thus access the results of the work of several generations of archaeologists.

THE ARCHITECTURE

Set against the forest, the building, designed by the architect Pierre-Louis Faloci, plays on the metaphor of archaeology: the materials used evoke the succession of ages of humanity, from the rough stone of the foundations to the zinc and steel of the roof, via the polished stone of the façades. The omnipresence of the square in the framework of the building recalls the grids of the excavation sites.

The two galleries of the permanent exhibition play on transparency and open onto the forest under which the remains of Bibracte lie.

The year after its inauguration, in 1996, the Bibracte Museum was awarded the Équerre d'argent, the highest distinction in France for architecture.

Pierre-Louis Faloci was also awarded the Grand Prix National de l'Architecture in 2018. This prize, which rewards an architect for the whole of his work, represents the highest national distinction in this field.