Like a breeze from Athens… Greeks and Gauls in Occitania

The exhibition explores the exchanges between the Greek world and the Gallic societies of the southern Mediterranean during the Iron Age.

Through Ensérune’s exceptional collections, the exhibition reveals how objects, images and technical innovations from Greece were adopted and reinterpreted by the Gauls.

A captivating journey into the heart of the cultural exchanges that shaped the shores of the western Mediterranean.

From the 6th century BC onwards, the southern coasts opened up to influences from Greece. Goods, skills and ideas travelled across the Mediterranean: wines from Rhodes or Chios, scented oils, prestige objects from the Peloponnese or Magna Graecia, but also new ways of living and thinking.

At Ensérune, these early contacts have been revealed by over a century of archaeological research: pottery, amphorae, jewellery, coins and decorations inspired by the Greek world bear witness to close ties with ports and trading posts around the Mediterranean such as Marseille, Agde and Ampurias. The inhabitants of the oppidum did not merely acquire these objects: they adopted them, transformed them and integrated them into their own culture.

The exhibition *Comme un air venu d’Athènes* invites visitors to discover how these influences shaped the daily lives of the people of Ensérune and helped to forge a unique culture, at the crossroads of the Greek, Iberian and Gallic worlds.

The proposed tour highlights the collections linked to the Greek world, in particular the Greek vases found in the necropolis, which constitute one of the finest collections on display in the south of France.

The exhibition will enable visitors to explore the four permanent exhibition galleries, punctuated by large jars that will serve as the backdrop for a thoroughly immersive experience engaging all the senses: tactile objects, scent diffusers and audiovisual displays.

Films and podcasts by researchers working at Ensérune, as well as on a national level, will enable visitors to better understand how the inhabitants of the oppidum adopted elements of Greek culture and integrated them into their own way of life and thinking.