Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Ruscino site, identified in the 17th century as the old town of Château-Roussillon near Perpignan, was excavated in the 18th century. The first significant discoveries date back to 1908-1914, when Frédéric Paul Thiers, curator of the Narbonne Museum, discovered the foundations of the forum and the inscriptions on marble. The research, interrupted until 1946, resumed under the direction of Georges Claustres, who explored more than a hundred underground silos used as cereal reserves and then as dumps, revealing many archaeological objects. Between 1946 and 1968, Claustres also searched the grounds surrounding the forum, enriching the knowledge of this ancient city.

From 1972, research intensified under the impetus of the Regional Antiquities Directorate. In 1973, the site was jointly acquired by the City of Perpignan and the State for protection and study. Two years later, the leftovers of the forum, completely cleared, were opened to the public for the first time. From 1975 to 1991, Rémi Marichal, a municipal archaeologist, led a excavation project covering more than 3,000 m2, revealing a Roman habitat marked by italic style dwellings, thermal baths and everyday objects (ceramics, glassware). These discoveries illustrate the climax of Ruscino, which became an oppidum Latinum under Caesar, before its unexplained decline at the end of the first century AD.

Excavations continue over the decades, with preventive operations between 1991 and 1997 locating the peripheral necropolis. From 2000 to 2002, a search of the site of the museum's future parking lot revealed remains dating from the Final Bronze in the early Iron Age. In 2008, a campaign conducted with the University of Toulouse studied the levels of destruction of the forum and an occupation of the High Middle Ages, marked by the exceptional discovery of kufic inscription lead seals, bearing witness to the Arab occupation in the eighth century. Today, the research combines traditional and non-invasive excavations to refine the understanding of this strategic site, located on the Via Domitia and marked by Iberian, Roman and Muslim influences.

The city of Ruscino, the capital of the Roussillon plain in the ancient period, grew from the seventh century BC with sedentary habitat and commercial exchanges attested by Etruscan and Greek ceramics. Romanization, effective in the middle of the first century B.C., transformed the urban fabric and introduced elements typically Roman (forum, thermal, Latin writing). After its peak under Augustus, the city mysteriously declined in the late 1st century AD, although traces of occupation persisted until the early Middle Ages. In the eighth century, Ruscino played a role in the Arab conquest of Narbonne, as evidenced by the kufic seals recently discovered. The permanent abandonment of the site for the benefit of Perpignan took place during the Carolingian period, leaving only the hamlet of Château-Roussillon.

The present museum, designed by architects François Fontés and Jean-Michel Willmote, integrates the remains of the forum and offers a journey highlighting archaeological discoveries. Its viewpoint offers a panoramic view of Perpignan and the Roussillon plain, highlighting the link between this historic site and its Mediterranean environment. The museum project, initiated in the 1980s by Rémi Marichal with the support of the municipality, aims to preserve and enhance this unique heritage, where Iberian, Roman and Arab influences intersect.

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