The Archéa museum, also known as "Archeology in the Pays de France", is located in the town of Louvres, in the Val-d'Oise department, a few kilometers northwest of Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport..
The current establishment is the heir of an associative museum, founded in the late 1970s by the Historical and Archaeological Research Group of Louvres-en-Parisis (GRHALP). The museum becomes municipal after the discovery of Merovingian tombs dedicated to aristocrats and which contain jewelry, dishes and weapons.
In 2001, the museum came under the supervision of the community of municipalities, which initiated the development of a new building. Its construction according to plans by the Bapst & Pantz firm led to the inauguration in 2010 of a museum with contemporary architecture including a permanent exhibition hall, a temporary exhibition hall, an auditorium, an educational activity room as well as a documentation center.
The permanent exhibition includes the presentation of some 700 objects from 87 archaeological sites in the territory (in the plain to the north and north-east of Paris), explaining human settlement and daily life from prehistory to Eighteenth century. Among the most remarkable pieces are the Gallic chariot tombs of the Val d'Oise, the Merovingian burials of the necropolis of Saint-Rieul (in the town of Louvres itself), the weather vane of the Château d'Orville besieged and destroyed in 1438 and representative examples of the thousand-year-old ceramic collections discovered in the Ysieux valley.
Modern museography includes the projection of films and the presentation of models, and the tour is intended to be both chronological and thematic.
Activities dedicated to young people, conferences, workshops and meetings are regularly scheduled, as well as "in situ" visits to excavation sites. Open Wednesday to Sunday. Price: 3.50 euros. Information on +33 1 34 09 01 02.
