The Archaeological Museum
As you explore the exhibition, you’ll gain a unique insight into 3,000 years of daily life for the inhabitants of the Grotte des Balmes…
The exhibition is organized around major themes: exchanges with other cultures and their influence on ceramics and jewelry…
The technical evolution of tools, from flint arrowheads to polished greenstone and finally to bronze… Or the perfect mastery of stone polishing…
Dates, times, and prices…
Next, visitors will see the gold and gilding of Baroque art, which has been present in churches and chapels since the 17th century. There is a profusion of colors, as in the Saint-Sébastien Chapel in Val Cenis , which houses exceptionally well-preserved murals. A must-see! The highlight of the visit is the reconstruction of a Neolithic dwelling, dating back to the beginning of the occupation of the Balmes Cave 5,600 years ago.
It faithfully reproduces the different activity areas within the cave: the “kitchen area” with its birch bark and ceramic containers, the millstone for grinding grain, and the southern-style cooking pot for preparing food.
Visitors can also explore the “workshop” where tools made of bone and deer antler, as well as arrowheads crafted from local green stone, are produced.
Dates, times, and prices…
The cave is located 150 meters above the Arc River and overlooks the valley and the village of Val Cenis Sardières. In the 19th century, it was used as a cheese cellar, before amateur speleologists discovered pottery shards there in 1972. Archaeologists quickly recognized the significance of this site.
More than twenty years of excavations have allowed them to gain new insights and better understand the settlement of the first farmers and herders in the Alps.
Dates, times, and prices…