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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

Roquepertuse, located on the town of Velaux in the Bouches-du-Rhône, is a plateau of about half a hectare overlooking the Arc Valley. Occupied between the 7th and 2nd centuries B.C.E., this site housed an important protoceltic village, then a sanctuary attributed to the Celto-Ligures (or Sallyens). The first discoveries in the 19th century, including monumental statues such as the "warriors-heroes sitting in tailors" or a bicephalous Hermes head, have long led Roquepertuse to be considered a major place of worship on the eve of the Roman conquest. A first systematic search campaign, conducted by Count Henry de Gérin-Ricard between 1917 and 1927, revealed structures associated with this sanctuary, confirming its religious and symbolic importance.

Recent analyses, however, have nuanced this exclusive interpretation. The statues, originally dated from the 2nd century B.C., are now estimated to date at least back to the 5th century B.C., marking an older origin (end of the first iron age or beginning of the Latenian period). The excavations carried out between 1989 and 2002 also revealed that Roquepertuse was primarily a major habitat centre in the third century BC, including an oppidum on the plateau and a "slope village" to the south. The site experienced violent destruction in the third century before being permanently abandoned at the beginning of the second century. The exact use of statues (cult, decoration, reuse) remains uncertain, questioning the traditional vision of an isolated sanctuary.

Ranked a historic monument in 1967, Roquepertuse illustrates the evolution of archaeological knowledge about the Celto-ligure societies of Provence. The main pieces discovered, once exhibited at the Museum of Mediterranean Archaeology in Marseille, were transferred in 2023 to the Museum of History in Marseille. The site, owned by the municipality of Velaux, bears witness to the cultural and political dynamics of the region before Romanization, between fortified habitats, religious practices and Mediterranean exchanges.

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