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The Fire Masters

Exhibition from June 13, 2025 to March 9, 2026

Audience type Tout public

The Bronze Age in France

2300 - 800 BC

This exhibition, the fruit of a collaboration between the Musée d'Archéologie nationale (MAN), the Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives (Inrap) and the Association pour la promotion des recherches sur l'âge du Bronze (APRAB) show how the evolution of metallurgy accompanied, both symbolically and culturally, the profound upheavals in Western European society. This period transformed the French territory into a crossroads of cultures.

In European societies, the introduction of bronze metallurgy and the tremendous impetus generated by the production and use of metal led to real changes in material cultures and the imaginary. The circulation of goods and people, and the development of means of communication by land and sea, underwent an unprecedented boom.

Four thematic sections - producing, exchanging, imagining the world, inhabiting the world - will highlight emblematic pieces from MAN's collections and from French and European museum collections, as well as recent archaeological discoveries made in France, notably from preventive archaeology research.

Suited to all audiences, this exhibition will offer an experience of the Bronze Age through experiments, workshops, lectures and events in the museum and on the national estate.

Access the visit guide available in several languages on Wivisites

Activities

Curator

Press

Farming in the Bronze Age