Graves of Sainte-Colombe-sur-Seine

The Graves of Sainte-Colombe-sur-Seine are several burial mounds dating from the 6th century BC [1]. The burials are associated with the Iron Age Hallstatt culture [1]. In the 19th century they were excavated at the request of Napoleon III, revealing elite wagon burials containing gold jewellery and prestigious imported artefacts [1]. The first to be excavated, located at La Garenne, provided a magnificent bronze lebes of Etruscan origin [1]. In another, at La Butte, gold bracelets and earrings were discovered in the grave of a woman who had been laid to rest on a luxurious iron-clad funerary wagon [1]. In the middle of the 20th century René Joffroy postulated that the elites buried under the tumuli of La Butte and La Garenne had Mont Lassois as their place of residence [1].