Bonjour
tout le monde! I decided to do my blog post on the numerous museums that
Grenoble has to offer because a) it’s a great way to get to know the city and
b) ashamed as I am to say it, I had yet to visit any until this assignment,
even though it’s already half way through the program. If you come here, do as
I say and not as I do, and visit one (or all!) earlier in the program. It was a
really rewarding experience and I regret not taking advantage of the opportunity
sooner, especially since we don’t have easy access to such a plethora of
museums back home in Athens.
The
first thing I will mention is that if you decide to visit a museum on Tuesday,
you will be limited to two of the 10 departmental museums Grenoble has to
offer, as the other 8 are all closed on this day of the week. No matter though,
because your options are the Musée de la Résistance (dedicated to Grenoble’s
specific history concerning the resistance movement during the French Occupation
of WWII) and the Musée de l’Ancien Évêché, which is where I chose to do my
visit for this blog.
In
case you aren’t up on your religious French vocabulary (I wasn’t), this name
roughly translates to “Museum of the Old Diocese”. I also found a translation
that said “Old Bishop’s Palace” which I think is more fun to say and gives a
clearer description of what this site actually was in layman’s terms, but I
digress! The museum was built atop the ruins of an ancient cathedral complex
dating back to Roman-occupied Gaul in the 9th century. I was
interested to learn that these ruins were discovered in the late 80’s, when the
city was excavating for a new tramway. In the bottom level of the museum, you
will find the remains of an old baptistery as well as displays of artifacts
from the time period that were found at the site. At the back of this level is
the main attraction: the remains of the baptismal pool that was actually used
about a thousand years ago. Even the ancient pipe system that was used to feed
the pool has been excavated and put on display. The layout of this part of the
museum makes it very easy to go on a self-guided tour, as there are many
guideposts that explain both what you are looking at as well as its historical
significance in terms of its cultural context at the time. Even though there
were, again, some religious vocab words that I wasn’t familiar with, I was
still able to get the gist of what was I was reading (there were pictures, too.
That’s always helpful). This would be an easy way for students of most language
levels to get an interesting history lesson on Grenoble outside of the
classroom.
After
the baptistery, I went up to the first floor of the museum which starts a
several stories tall introduction to the history of the department of Isère,
starting in the Stone Age and extending onwards through time. I was short on
time so I only got to explore the Stone Age area, but this was by far my
favorite part of my visit to the museum. On display are artifacts found
throughout the department, including tools, decorative objects and even the
oldest human remains found in region. This takes the form of a partial human
skull that archeologists have named “Alexandre”. The skull was found in 1983 in
a cave (la grotte Joëlle) and is roughly 11,000 years old. Carbon dating has
revealed that Alexandre was approximately 50 years old at the time of his death
and measured 1.6 meters tall. Another one of my favorite pieces that I saw in
this exhibit was a partially intact bone object with an engraving of a horse’s
head on its surface. I am obsessed with the prehistoric cave paintings that
have been found in France (I’m going to visit the Lascaux cave exhibit during
spring vacation), and the style of this horse was completely reminiscent of the
art that can be found at those sites.
These
last two objects really drove home for me how much I appreciate the antiquity
that you can discover in France and throughout Europe in general. While America
certainly isn’t short on sites of historical significance, by virtue of being a
relatively young country, we simply don’t have access to such profound links to
our ancient past. There’s something spiritual about seeing something that old
with tangible traces of humanity that I haven’t quite figured out how to
articulate. Suffice it to say that this wasn’t a visit I will soon forget.
Helpful tip: The Maison du Tourisme in the centre-ville of
Grenoble has a really helpful pamphlet that includes the names, addresses,
hours and a brief description of all ten of the departmental museums. It makes
things so easy!
-Erin
-Erin
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