Musée d'Aquitaine

The Musée d'Aquitaine in Bordeaux is a major regional museum of history, archaeology, and ethnology. Its collections, originally spread across several smaller institutions, were brought together in the 1960s following an initiative by Henri Rivière. Today the museum, housed in a former building of the Faculty of Sciences and Letters, holds more than 70,000 objects. Here you can follow the history of Aquitaine and Bordeaux from prehistory to the present day. Exhibits cover the Gallo-Roman era, the period of English rule, and Bordeaux's role as a transatlantic trading and port city. One particular highlight is the restored cenotaph of Michel de Montaigne. The permanent exhibition is rounded out by an ethnographic section with works from Africa and Oceania.