Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

ARCHEA, Archaeology in France, is a museum labeled Museum of France located in Louvres, Val-d'Oise. Its mission is to highlight the archaeological heritage of eastern Val-d'Oise, including the Orville and Ysieux Valley sites. The museum was born in the 1970s thanks to the Groupe de recherche historique et archéologique de Louvres-en-Parisis (GRHALP), which discovered a Merovingian necropolis under the Saint-Rieul tower, revealing aristocratic tombs rich in furniture (juice, weapons, dishes).

In 2001, the museum became intermunicipal under the aegis of the Communauté d'agglomeration Roissy Pays de France. A new building, designed by Bruno Pantz, was opened in 2010. It houses 700 objects from 87 local archaeological sites, presented according to a chronological (from Paleolithic to 18th century) and thematic path. The museum also values the Carolingian site of Orville, which has been excavated since the 1990s, and the ceramic heritage of the valley of Ysieux, where potter workshops have worked for a thousand years (VIIIth–XVIIIth centuries).

The collections come from preventive excavations (Charles-de-Gaulle airport, Francilienne) and programmed (Castles of Orville and Roissy-en-France), as well as donations from local associations such as the Jeunesse préhistorique et géologique de France (JPGF). The museum offers temporary exhibitions, educational workshops and animations, especially during Heritage Days. Its territory of action expanded in 2016 with the extension of the agglomeration community from 19 to 42 communes.

The Orville site, occupied by the seventh century, reveals a Carolingian village and a medieval castle destroyed in 1438 during the Hundred Years War. Experimental reconstitutions (torchis houses, ovens) are carried out. The Ysieux Valley, on the other hand, houses a project for an interpretation centre dedicated to its millennial potter tradition, in collaboration with the MuCEM. ARCHEA thus plays a key role in preserving and disseminating local history, from antiquity to modern times.

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