Bargoin Museum of Archaeology
Please note Following repainting, the museum’s ground floor rooms are currently being reorganised. They will be opened as work progresses. However, the votive offering room is open to the public.
History
A plan to create a museum at Clermont-Ferrand was studied in 1822 and again in 1839. It was not until 1842 that the first collections were put together and given a home in Rue Saint-Jacques (now Rue Vercingétorix) and Jean-Baptise Bouillet (1799-1878) was named curator.
In 1860-61, the collection was moved to the building once occupied by the order of Charity (on the north western corner of the Jardin Lecoq) and opened to the public.
The first catalogue published by J.-B. Bouillet in 1861 listed 824 items, and archaeology was already well represented.
Thanks to a bequest from the Clermont-Ferrand pharmacist Jean-Baptiste Bargoin (1813-1885), the town built the current museum, bearing the name of its benefactor, in what used to be Place du Taureau, between 1899 and 1903. The plans were drawn up by the architect Dionnet while the façade bas-reliefs are by the sculptor P. Gray and the ironwork by Bernardin.
Because of the number of archaeological digs in the town and the region, the archaeological collections continue to grow. Prehistoric sites have been found just outside the town: Blanzat, Enval, Cébazat... Protohistoric archaeology is represented by major collections:
the Manson Treasure Trove, the helmet from Les Martres-de-Veyre, digs in the Rue Descartes...
Today, the Gallo-Roman era is the most widely represented with several outstanding collections: the Source des Roches at Chamalières votive offerings (1st century AD); the tombs at Les Martres-de-Veyre (2nd century); the temple of Mercury at the Puy de Dôme summit (2nd-3rd century)... These can all be grouped together around the themes of funerary rites and religion.
A second group is based on the collections of coinage: the Arvernes were among the first to mint money in Gaul, perhaps as early as the 3rd century BC. Archaeological research has led to the discovery of mints in the countryside close to the town. Numismatics is now represented by a fine Gaulish collection, a Roman and Gallo-Roman collection, and a mediaeval collection (from the Merovingian period and the 14th-15th centuries). In addition to the opportunity for pure research into numismatics in Auvergne, these collections of coinage offer perspectives on the world of exchange and trade which are still being studied.
