Europe's finest collection of antique wooden sculptures: wishes to the gods

The Bargoin Museum in Clermont-Ferrand has been closed since January for major renovations. However, one room remains open to visitors. Inaugurated in July 2024, it is dedicated to an exceptional collection of Gallo-Roman wooden votive offerings. Accessible until the summer of 2026, it will not be open again, like the rest of the museum, until 2030.

These votive offerings were discovered in 1968 in the sanctuary of the Roches spring in Chamalières (Puy-de-Dôme), a suburb of Clermont-Ferrand, during the construction of buildings. Excavations, which continued until 1971, yielded the largest European collection of ancient wooden sculptures.

This therapeutic sanctuary, located in the heart of nature, consisted of a simple natural pool, fed by a spring, with no buildings nearby. The votive offerings brought by the sick or their loved ones were arranged at the bottom of the water "as if there was an organization. They were not placed in an anarchic manner," suggests Elie Rafowicz, deputy director of the museum.

The site, frequented from the reign of Augustus (63 BC-14 AD) until the beginning of the ^3rd century when it was abruptly abandoned, yielded more than 10,000 fragments of wood, corresponding to approximately 3,500 whole votive offerings. They represent legs, arms, heads, breasts, genitals, internal organs… Pathologies are not represented, apart from rare cysts on the arms. Some representations of horses and bovines have also been found there.

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