We invite you to go back two millennia in time to the museum, to immerse yourself in a pivotal period which saw the appearance of large agglomerations in a vast space of temperate Europe, the structuring of territories and the intensification of craft production and commercial exchanges.
Bibracte is the perfect example of what is called an oppidum, that is to say a vast fortified city which suddenly appeared in the 2nd century BC, at the same time as two hundred others, built on an immense territory. which stretches from the Atlantic to Central Europe and which we usually call Celtic Europe, even if it is impossible to say that the inhabitants of this vast space recognized themselves a common identity.
Who were the inhabitants of these oppida? How was their society organized? How have archaeologists contributed to resurrecting this key phase in the urbanization of Europe? And above all, how to explain the many similarities between these sites hundreds of kilometers 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 iconic pieces. Many come from excavations carried out on Mont Beuvray. All allow us to draw a portrait of Bibracte and its time, characterized by the proliferation of agricultural, industrial, commercial, political and religious activities.
Associated with models, plans, photographs and digital devices, they also reveal different aspects of the work of archaeologists.
In addition to the permanent exhibition, the Bibracte museum offers a temporary exhibition every year which sheds light on a new archaeological theme.
In February 2018, the museum obtained the designation "Musée de France".