Les méandres du passé. Quand la Bresse raconte l’âge du Bronze

(Écomusée de la Bresse bourguignonne)

One does not usually expect to find an exhibition on the Bronze Age in a seventeenth-century château, but this is the home of Les méandres du passé (The meanders of the past). The rest of the museum provides no context for the Bronze Age, or indeed prehistory, and the collection and curatorial staff are acutely aware of this. It is, then, an educational exhibition first and foremost, designed to introduce and explain the Bronze Age to all ages through finds from the Pierre-de-Bresse area and its rivers. It is undoubtedly successful in its aims.

The exhibition is colourful (Figure 3), though not garish, and adorned by simple yet beautiful graphical depictions that do not patronise the audience or, indeed, the evidence. Visitors are guided through different aspects of Bronze Age life, including social structures, settlements, agriculture, craft working and so on. Each theme is supplemented by text panels (with perhaps a few too many words in some areas) as well as a range of interactives. Visitors are encouraged to understand the scientific exploration of the archaeological record, with microscopes set up to see cereal grains, flip-open panels with questions and answers, and QR codes that offer people the chance to find out more if they choose. One can see how this style and arrangement will greatly appeal to both families and those with a general interest in archaeology.

Figure 3. The exhibition space at ‘Les méandres du passé’ (photograph by Arno Verhoeven).

It helps that this is all set alongside some wonderful, well-displayed discoveries from the region. A fish trap from Ouroux-sur-Saône is nicely lit so the elements of basketry can be clearly seen, for instance. The key assemblage that brings Bronze Age life into focus derives from recent excavations at Pierre-de-Bresse, Saône-et-Loire, co-ordinated by Inrap, where a substantial assemblage of Bronze Age artefactual evidence was uncovered from palaeochannels, pits and wells. Over 200 000 sherds of Middle to Late Bronze Age pottery were recovered, much of which was finely made and often ornately decorated—it is the envy of those who study British later Bronze Age pottery!

Several cases are dedicated to crafting in the Bronze Age, illustrated through large loom weights, numerous spindle whorls and other tools. Impressive survivals from Pierre-de-Bresse include a large wooden ladder from one of the wells, and three wall cases show wooden ‘tableware’—carved bowls or plates, some finished, others incomplete with the remains of the marking out inscribed on the wood by the carver 3000 years ago (Figure 4). Noticeably, bronze does not overwhelm the exhibition. Yes, there are swords, axeheads and spearheads that derive from the local waterways, but this is an exhibition that wonderfully puts more emphasis on the multiple facets of ‘everyday’ life in prehistory, be that grinding grain, weaving textiles or digging wells.

Figure 4. Wooden ‘tableware’ from Pierre-de-Bresse, in ‘Les méandres du passé’ (© Écomusée de la Bresse).

Les Maîtres du feu. L’âge du Bronze en France 2300–800 av. J.-C.

(Musée d’Archéologie nationale MAN)

The last exhibition under review here—Les Maîtres du feu (Masters of fire)—is, in many respects, France’s response to other major ‘show-stopping’ exhibitions in Europe, such as the British Museum’s World of Stonehenge (Garrow & Wilkin Reference Garrow and Wilkin2022) or Bronstijd. Vuur van Verandering (Bronze Age. Fire of change) at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden (Amkreutz & Van der Vaart-Verschoof Reference Amkreutz and Van der Vaart-Verschoof2024). I doubt this is its intention, but it was hard not to see it as such; in reality its aim is the same as the other French exhibitions, bringing the story of Bronze Age France to the French public.

I was fortunate to receive an introduction to the exhibition by curator, Rolande Simone-Millot, who highlighted the need to introduce the Bronze Age to a public that might overlook the Bronze Age between the stunning Palaeolithic and later evidence of French prehistory and the protohistoric Gauls. In general, the Bronze Age is considered poorly understood, so the focus of the exhibition is not on an emblematic monument as a symbol of prehistory (as in Stonehenge) nor on gathering hundreds of objects from across Europe (á la Bronstijd).

Much like Pouvoir et métal, the exhibition is divided into four key themes: ‘Produire et innover’ (Production and innovation), ‘Échanger et communiquer’ (Exchange and communication), ‘Imaginer le monde’ (Imagining the world) and ‘Habiter le monde’ (Inhabiting the world), each designed to tackle a different part of the Bronze Age. The visitor is led on a journey that introduces them to the production of bronze; the mechanisms for exchange of a range of materials across western Europe (by sea, by horse, by road); the cosmology of the Bronze Age; and, lastly, the domestic setting, ranging from bone points to lavish feasting vessels.

The exhibition’s focus on these four themes inevitably means aspects of Bronze Age life do not receive as much focus as one might expect. Most notably, there is little that directly deals with hoarding or death and burial—both of which are intrinsic to understanding the French archaeology. Burial associations are displayed—the lavish bronze ornaments from Réallon or the La Motta accoutrements for instance—but only in the context of understanding gender, dress and status, rather than representing burial practices. The corollary of this is that a wealth of Bronze Age burial evidence is overlooked, including the very people from which we can often learn about life through burial ceremonies and scientific analyses. It also means certain artefact types are largely absent—one will find few Bell Beakers or urns in the exhibition.

The exhibition draws heavily on MAN’s diverse collections usually in store, as well as key loans. While most material derives from France, I was surprised to encounter small bronze animal figurines from Russia, a bronze lur from Denmark and bronze and gold burial vessels from Germany. This diverse geography feels slightly eclectic at times, symptomatic of MAN’s historic collections; rather than trying to represent the whole of Bronze Age Europe, visitors get snapshots of other regions that contribute to the narratives. The accompanying exhibition volume does cover Bronze Age Europe though and gives more context to what is on display. This approach did mean, however, that I had to occasionally double-check provenances to understand whether I was looking at material from France or elsewhere—one fears the general public may not pay such attention to these labels. This feels particularly acute upon first entering the exhibition, when one is confronted by a replica of the ‘Mask of Agamemnon’. While it is undoubtedly a face that captures the imagination and will no doubt be familiar to many, I found it tricky to understand the direct relevance of this face from the Greek world; moreover, I feel that an exhibition should not start with a replica.

It is, nonetheless, an undoubtedly beautiful exhibition. The first display after Agamemnon is of bronze metalworking equipment and debris set against a floor-to-ceiling backdrop of fire and accompanied by the soundscape of crackling flames; it is delightfully evocative (Figure 5). The displays are clean, sleek and, for the most part, well lit. The exhibition overall benefits from minimal technological assets. An innovative touch screen timeline at the start is effective at giving the visitor more (or less) information as they wish; other touchscreens are there only to provide context to the material on display. There are no talking heads or videos of crafting that one often encounters in such exhibitions. This ensures that a) the focus is on the displays, which are well-spaced; and b) there is no intrusive noise from talking videos as you wander through. The exhibition is supplemented by a repertoire of lovely black and white illustrations that give a sense of the Bronze Age people in the space, with only select objects highlighted in a yellow-bronze colour. The objects are beautifully mounted. Much thought and care has clearly gone into how to get the most from the objects and the mounting emphasises details, without distracting. Belt fittings sit effortlessly in formation against a silhouetted figure, while the nested gold and bronze vessels from Unterglauheim (Germany) seemingly float within each other (Figure 6).

Figure 5. Display of metalworking material and background graphic at ‘Les Maîtres du feu’. (© MAN, photograph by Baptiste Simon).

Figure 6. The hoard from Unterglauheim (Dillingen, Germany) on suspended mounting in ‘Les Maîtres du feu’ (© MAN, photograph by Baptiste Simon).

Of course, an exhibition such as this also needs to ‘wow’ visitors. The large gold torc from Guînes or the golden cone/hat from Avanton, both derive from the MAN collections, and are given star treatment here. I doubt I will ever tire of seeing such objects, and visitors who have never encountered them will no doubt be awestruck. Spectacular finds such as the metalworking toolkit from Génelard, a cast bronze wheel from Couiza and tiny glass beads from Lamotte-du-Rhône all feature to convey different themes and stories of the Bronze Age.

I was particularly struck by the display of martial equipment (swords, spearheads, cuirasses and helmets), deliberately juxtaposed opposite an array of stunning and curious bronze ornaments from burials at Réallon. A large text panel was given over to deliberately challenging assumptions about gender in the past, and what we—the visitor—conjure in our minds when we see these objects: do ornaments equal women and weapons equal men? This is undoubtedly an important message for visitors (and specialists!), but it is slightly dampened by being set alongside a large illustration of two men wearing cuirasses and helmets.

So far, I have mostly described the first three sections of the exhibition. Due to the nature of the space at the MAN, visitors must move via a small staircase from ‘Imaginer’ to a grand chapel where the final section—‘Habiter’—is displayed. The colour and tone of the exhibition changes almost instantly, with display backdrops changing from blue to green and being set within the high-ceilinged chapel. One of my initial criticisms was the lack of a sense of the Bronze Age landscape within the exhibition, but this was quelled by the final area. Visitors enter through a life-sized evocation of a timber post house set within the historic MAN building, which is visually impressive and works effectively to situate the visitor within a housing space (Figure 7). This is coupled with a display of diverse material from domestic settings. Pottery, loom weights, rare textile survivals and charred grain are displayed across a raised floor separated from the visitor only by fine netting, rather than glass, another nice feature that immerses the visitor. Given the title, it feels a missed opportunity that there is no domestic soundscape or evocation of fire in this space. Mastery of fire in the Bronze Age extended to cooking and pot-firing, of course.

Figure 7. A reconstructed domestic setting in ‘Les Maîtres du feu’ within the chapel at Musée d’Archéologie nationale (photograph by Matthew G. Knight).

Visitors pass an impressive array of bronze, gold and ceramic feasting vessels before coming to another star of the exhibition: the rock art slab from Saint-Bélec, interpreted as a map of the Odet Valley in Brittany (Nicolas et al. Reference Nicolas2021). Whether or not one believes it is truly a map, the slab is huge and impressive and the chance to see it up close is excellent. It adds a new dynamic to thinking about the Bronze Age and a touchscreen is used effectively to highlight the rock art’s relationship with the landscape it may depict. The slab also serves to highlight the state of Bronze Age research, with more to be discovered—a point emphasised by a half-excavated hoard on display nearby and accompanied by a video of the excavation.

The exhibition closes similarly to how it started: one exits through a room displaying a cremation burial against the backdrop of a large fire with crackling audio. It is a shame such evocative soundscapes were not used more throughout the exhibition, but the atmosphere created ends the exhibition nicely.

Reflections

Given the relationship between these exhibitions, and indeed with other large prehistoric exhibitions elsewhere, it feels apt to offer some reflections. Firstly, there is an overarching aim to the Year of the Bronze Age in France: that of introducing the Bronze Age world to a public that might otherwise overlook it. Although united by a general objective, each exhibition tackles the Bronze Age in different ways, drawing on collections at different scales, be that from reserve collections, loans or recent excavation assemblages. It is ambitious, then, to establish so many contemporaneous exhibitions—there are four additional exhibitions in other French museums not reviewed here—not least because one is faced with the choice about how to tell similar stories through available objects and how to get them to speak to each other. In some cases, the exhibitions are united by similar illustrations—Pouvoir et métal and Les Maîtres du feu both use the same illustrator (Pierre-Yves Videlier) who contributed to a previous exhibition at Musée Vivant-Denon in Chalon-sur-Saône in 2022–2023 (Colas & Lourdaux-Jurietti Reference Colas and Lourdaux-Jurietti2022)—but other exhibitions take their own approaches. This has an interesting impact when one visits multiple exhibitions: the Bronze Age is explored from a myriad of angles with emphases placed in different areas. Although stylistically different, Les méandres du passé was the one I felt would most engage the public, with its suite of interactives and colourful graphical style. Les Maîtres du feu is, of course, the one that is going to most impress the public with highlights of the Bronze Age world, something that is to be expected considering the exhibitions in Leiden, London, Alicante and elsewhere. It also has the rather greater challenge of conveying the whole of Bronze Age France and its European context.

It is equally impressive, though, to see the more ‘domestic’ material that one does not usually expect to survive for thousands of years: a fragment of textile or a wooden ladder. Across Europe, such survivals are increasingly well-preserved thanks to modern archaeological techniques, and it is worthwhile giving them exhibition space. It was telling that so many artefacts derived from excavations co-ordinated by Inrap and, alongside APRAB, one can really see the benefit of these central archaeological organisations. One wonders if British archaeological institutions could unite under an auspice such as a Year of the Bronze Age.

Further, it is stimulating to view these exhibitions in the context of permanent displays and other major European exhibitions. Each exhibition curator, collaborating with a range of specialists, no doubt feels the need to do something new, even if most visitors are not the sort to have either seen the permanent displays before or, indeed, toured around past major European exhibitions. For the exhibitions at the MAN and the Musée de Préhistoire d’Ⓘle-de-France, there are already permanent, quite traditional, displays overflowing with the richness of the prehistoric record. This perhaps explains the slightly more reserved approach to the numbers of objects on display in both exhibitions—sometimes less is more, especially if one wants to communicate a focused story to the public. If these introductions to the Bronze Age encourage visitors to explore the permanent prehistoric galleries, then so much the better. Similarly, display cases overwhelmed with the breadth of European gold objects or the reunification of six oversized bronze dirks have been done by other major exhibitions; the evocation of a household or a large rock art slab as a centrepiece have not.

In all, one cannot help but be impressed by the exhibitions across France. They demonstrate the current exciting state of excavation and research that is contributing to the richness of the Bronze Age archaeological record. It is easy to quibble over individual aspects of the exhibitions, but each have their highlights, and when seen together an in-depth picture of Bronze Age communities emerges that is not solely focused on the ‘elite’ status of objects and individuals, but offers insights into prehistoric life. It is an unprecedented and extraordinary achievement. The sheer number of necessary collaborators to make a whole series of Bronze Age exhibitions happen all at once across a country is immeasurable. Some of the preparation work, and important research and context for visitors, is also captured in dedicated exhibition catalogues (Mousseaux et al. Reference Mousseaux, Roger, Garcia and Mordant2025; Traon-Maingaud Reference Traon-Maingaud2025), supplemented by beautiful photography—an impressive body of works that deserves a separate review. The Year of the Bronze Age, one hopes, will be considered successful in engaging the public with this aspect of the French past. Let’s not wait another 150 years to do it again.