musée du Pays châtillonnais

The Musée du Pays Châtillonnais, also known as the Trésor de Vix, is an archaeological museum in Châtillon-sur-Seine, Côte-d'Or, France. Founded in 1882 and managed by the Communauté de communes du Pays Châtillonnais, it holds particular importance for housing the finds from the Vix Grave, including the celebrated Vix krater, a monumental Greek bronze vessel dated to circa 500 BCE that documents the connections between Gauls and Greeks in the Hallstatt period. The museum's collections span from prehistory to the nineteenth century, making it a significant regional institution for understanding the archaeology and historyregion of northern Burgundy.

The museum's collections encompass the entire chronological span of human activity in the Châtillonnais region. Prehistory is represented through chance finds and systematic excavations at Mont Lassois and the Cave of La Grande Baume at Balot, including Palaeolithic tools and animal remains. The protohistoric collections, covering the Bronze Age and Iron Age Hallstatt and La Tène periods, form a particular strength, anchored by the Vix Grave assemblage. Gallo-Roman material derives from the city of Vertillum, the sanctuaries of Essarois and Tremblois at Villiers-le-Duc, and votive deposits from the Douix spring. Medieval holdings include works from Fontenay Abbey and Notre-Dame de Châtillon, along with relics associated with Saint Vorles. The museum also preserves objects from the Renaissance through the eighteenth century, including daily life items, trade goods, and metalworking materials. A distinctive feature is the memorial room dedicated to Marshal Marmont, a native of Châtillon, which the museum notes as unique in Europe for highlighting this figure. Additionally, a nineteenth-century collection of local bird specimens assembled by the naturalist Fernand Daguin addresses themes of biodiversity and regional ecology. The museum also holds the second largest collection of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century woodblock printing matrices in France.

The undisputed centerpiece of the museum is the Vix krater, the largest known bronze vessel from antiquity, of Greek manufacture and dating to approximately 500 BCE. This krater, discovered in the Vix Grave together with a gold torc of Celtic-Iberian origin, demonstrates the far-reaching trade and cultural contacts of the Hallstatt elite. The Sainte-Colombe-sur-Seine graves and the Douix spring deposits constitute other significant protohistoric assemblages. From the Gallo-Roman period, the museum displays material from Vertillum, including a statue of Bacchus stolen in 1973, recovered in 2019, and publicly exhibited from 1 February 2022. The Essarois sanctuary has yielded notable ex-votos, including one discovered in 2009 depicting a case of human polydactyly. Medieval highlights include the reliquary of Saint Vorles, which illuminates the territorial dispute between secular and regular powers. The Marmont collection features personal and political objects such as marshal's batons, medals, a magic lantern, a clock, an official title signed by Napoleon, and a painted sketch attributed to Jacques-Louis David, alongside period furniture including a desk stamped by Jacob-Desmalter, official cabinetmaker to Napoleon I. The Daguin ornithological collection includes a bronze by Ferdinand Barbedienne presented to the naturalist by his colleagues.

The museum occupies the former abbey of Notre-Dame de Châtillon, a Cistercian foundation established in the twelfth century by Bernard of Clairvaux. The building complex was reconstructed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries before serving as a hospital and nursing home. The conversion to museum use was designed by architect Antoine Stinco, providing 2,000 square metres of space in what is described as a prestigious setting. This location replaced the Hôtel Philandrier, the museum's home from 1950 to 2009, which had offered only 400 square metres. The abbey setting accommodates the expanded chronological and thematic scope of the reorganized collections, from prehistory through the eighteenth century.

The Musée du Pays Châtillonnais is located in Châtillon-sur-Seine, Côte-d'Or, in the Burgundy region of France. The museum is approximately two and a half hours from Paris, thirty minutes from Montbard, and one hour from both Troyes and Dijon. It is managed by the Communauté de communes du Pays Châtillonnais. The institution maintains an official website at www.musee-vix.fr, which provides information in multiple languages. The museum has implemented the DIVINE system, an experimental visitor assistance program delivering interactive multimedia content via Wi-Fi. The move to the Notre-Dame de Châtillon site in 2009 significantly expanded public access to the collections, which are now presented in a chronological sequence from prehistory through the eighteenth century, with additional nineteenth-century material including the Daguin natural history collection.