Overall Rating      ****    4 stars – stunning unique exhibits

Display                   *****  5 – thematic, amazing building, bilingual

Access                     ***      3 – easy parking, buses from central Lyon

Other                       Wow Factor!

This is one of the best Provincial Museums you can find in the Empire.  Some of the objects took our breath away.

It brings together Roman finds from the Midi of France on the now familiar thematic basis, but when opened in 1975 ground breaking.  The building is brilliantly designed by Bernard Zehrfuss to fit into the hill alongside the Fouvière Theatres, and opened by President Giscard d’Estaing.

Colonia Copia Claudia Augusta Lugdunum was founded in 43 BCE by Lucius Munatius Plancus, it was the capital of Gallia Lugdunensis, the seat of the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls and the second most important city in the West – after Rome, with its own urban cohort and a population estimated at 50-100,000.  Both Claudius and Caracalla were born there.

You enter the Museum from the top and walk down a winding path, starting with inscriptions, moving through temples, domestic houses, trade and so forth.  There are some of the best exhibits you could find ranging from

• a stunning ceremonial bronze age cart from 6th BCE,
• fragments of the Altar to Augustus and Rome from the Sanctuary of the Three Gauls
• the longest written inscription in Gallic – the Coligny Calendar (!),
• Claudius’ speech on a large bronze tablet in AD 48 before the Roman Senate granting Gauls entry to the Senate,
• silver statuettes buried during the 2nd CE Germanic invasions and
• top rate mosaics like the Bacchus Mosiac from Lugdunum (Lyon) and the surrounding cities.

These are just a few of the treasures.  There are numerous excellent models of temple precincts, city insulae, how the scene-lifting gear worked at the theatre and so forth.  There is a relief model of the surrounding area at the start, which by use of light projections orientates the visitor on when Lugdunum was founded by and then developed over the next 4 centuries.

There are bilingual French and English labels which is helpful and a well produced souvenir guide.

If we had to find a criticism it would be there is not enough on the later history and decline of Roman Lugdunum.  The overall impression is of the immense material wealth and artistic culture of the Capital of the Three Gauls.  Not to be missed!