Maurice Moisson and René Joffroy at the foot of Mount Lassois

It was in the heart of Châtillonnais, during the winter of 1953, that two archaeologists, Maurice Moisson and René Joffroy, made an extraordinary find: that of a princely tomb in Vix (Côte d’Or).

In this tomb rested, for eternity, a Celtic princess of the 6th century before our era belonging to some “barbarian” society, in connection with the Hellenistic and Etruscan worlds. Under the gigantic tumulus long leveled, the burial chamber contained disproportionate, unthinkable furniture. The central element was a crater, decorated with gorgonians and hoplite friezes: A gigantic bronze vase weighing more than 200 kilos, with a capacity of more than a thousand liters: the largest that Antiquity has bequeathed to us. Also present are a silver phiale (cup), an oenochoe, bronze basins, an exceptional golden torque. This tomb constitutes, in France, the greatest Celtic discovery of the 20th century.