FranceHistories

The Prince of Lavau, a Rival to Vix in Champagne

p2

The Birth of the Gaulish World · ANTIQUITY

Some hundred kilometers northwest of Vix, a second Hallstatt “kingdom” flourished in Champagne, around present-day Troyes. The tomb that embodies it, discovered at Lavau and dated to the mid-5th century BCE, has nothing to envy in the one at Mont Lassois — in some respects, it is an even more sumptuous rival.

🔍 The 2014-2015 discovery

Between October 2014 and April 2015, a team of archaeologists from Inrap excavated a monumental necropolis at Lavau, on the outskirts of Troyes, in the Aube, dating back to the end of the Bronze Age. The excavations unexpectedly revealed the tomb of an extraordinarily wealthy individual who lived around 500 BCE. The work was directed scientifically by Bastien Dubuis, a protohistorian archaeologist at Inrap and researcher at the ArTeHiS laboratory. The burial chamber, covering 14 m², had remained sealed since the mid-5th century BCE, protected by a tumulus 40 meters in diameter.

🍷 Greco-Etruscan tableware at the heart of the grave goods

The deceased was accompanied by a remarkable set of Mediterranean tableware. Its centerpiece is a bronze cauldron, very likely of Etruscan or Greek origin, about a meter in diameter with a capacity of 250 to 300 liters, crafted using the lost-wax technique. It is topped with four circular handles decorated with the head of the Greek river-god Achelous — depicted horned, bearded, with bull’s ears and a triple mustache — while its rim bears eight lion heads. Added to this are a gold-and-silver strainer, and a Greek oenochoe, a wine vessel adorned with a depiction of the god Dionysus, enriched with precious-metal decoration. These figurative objects, thick with bearded gods, reflect the Celtic elite’s attraction to Mediterranean culture: the “civilized” consumption of aromatized red wine and the practice of the banquet, in the Greek and Etruscan fashion, became markers of prestige as important as weapons or ornaments.

👑 The prince and his adornments

Resting on a two-wheeled chariot, the deceased wore a torque and two gold bracelets, a lignite bracelet, and finely worked amber beads. Specialists explicitly compare this tomb to that of Vix, separated by only a few generations: two nearly contemporary Hallstatt “kingdoms” emerged at this time, one in Burgundy around Mont Lassois, the other in Champagne around Troyes, each in its own way attesting to the integration of Celtic elites into Mediterranean exchange networks — without any known relationship of subordination between the two.

🧠 Key points

  • A princely tomb discovered at Lavau (Troyes, Aube) by Inrap between 2014 and 2015, led by Bastien Dubuis, dated to the mid-5th century BCE.
  • Its centerpiece is an Etruscan or Greek bronze cauldron about a meter in diameter (250-300 liters), decorated with heads of Achelous and lions.
  • An oenochoe bearing the likeness of Dionysus and a gold-and-silver strainer complete a set of tableware that attests to the Celtic elite’s adoption of the Mediterranean banquet.
  • Together with Vix, this tomb outlines two contemporary Hallstatt “kingdoms,” one in Burgundy, the other in Champagne, with no known relationship of subordination between them.