What is a museum? What does this word evoke for us today?
What is the place of this institution in our society? Why is it still, and perhaps more than ever before, so important?
There could be many answers to these questions, but rather than delving into convoluted definitions, I prefer to share my personal point of view: a museum is the chest of memory.

Since time immemorial, through chance discoveries or more recently through planned archaeological excavations, the daily life of the inhabitants of these wild lands of Camargue has been dotted with more or less precious findings.
Whether you plow a field, pull up a fishing net, or empty a cabinet, traces of the past reappear in abundance.

Many small fragments, sometimes from an ancient past, sometimes more recent, retain traditions that are still alive and help us better understand where we come from.
To paraphrase the philosopher Bernard de Chartres: "We are like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants," and these small elements are precisely the traces of our giants, the witnesses of history, of our past.

The Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Museum has established itself as the ideal place to collect, study, and enhance the rich past of these lands surrounded by water and inhabited by a people, yesterday as today, strongly determined to affirm their cultural identity.
I like to say that the construction of our museum has added thirty centuries of history to Camargue, but it might be more accurate to say that the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Museum has dusted off and showcased a past that had been forgotten.

From the Etruscan period to the Marquis Folco de Baroncelli, a rich and educational journey awaits you to rediscover with us the past of these wild and (not so) inhospitable lands.

Giorgio SPADA
Director of the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Museum

CONTENTS

Preface
Foreword
Introduction
About the exhibition objects

FROM THE DARK DEPTHS OF THE WATERS…

I. The Ancient Period

• Camargue, a changing landscape
• The Archaic Period: Etruscans and the Greeks of Marseille
• Research on the Temple of Artemis at the mouth of the Rhône
• Products of Roman Italy: Republican Period
• Products of Roman Italy: Imperial Period
• Products from Gaul and Iberia
• Humanization of Camargue
• Products from Greece and the Near East
• Products from Africa
• Raw materials
• The wheels of Metagenes
• Bronze objects
• Ancient navigation in the Rhône Delta
• The port area
• Late Antiquity

II. The Medieval Period

• Shipwrecks and strandings on the shores of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer

III. The Modern and Contemporary Period

• Eating on board: the captain's table
• Combat and maneuvers
• Living and working on board
• Hygiene and care on board
• Trade
• Leisure on board
• From sails to steam
• World War II
• Archaeological looting

IN THE LIGHT OF THE MARSHES

IV. The Baroncellian Period

• Marquis Folco de Baroncelli Javon, inventor of Camargue
• Chronology
• Horses and bulls
• Life at the Mas
• The Marquis' circle
• The Félibrige
• The Gardianne Nation
• Baroncelli and the traditions of Camargue
• The Marquis' struggles
• "Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, birthplace of tradition, the legacy of the Marquis"

FRENCH-PROVENÇAL GLOSSARY
OBJECTS UNDER RESTORATION SOON TO BE EXHIBITED
UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS IN CAMARGUE, A LONG LOVE STORY
BIBLIOGRAPHY

AUTHORS OF THE VOLUME

• Fabrice BIGOT: Archaeologist, specialist in mosaics, associated researcher at UMR5140 "Archaeology of Mediterranean Societies" (Montpellier).
• Guillaume DUPERRON: Archaeologist, Sète Agglopôle Méditerranée, associated researcher at UMR5140 "Archaeology of Mediterranean Societies" (Montpellier).
• Samantha FESQUET: Archaeologist – Youth Coordinator in charge of cultural mediation.
• Luc LONG: Underwater archaeologist - Honorary heritage curator of DRASSM - Researcher attached to UMR5140 (CNRS, Lattes-Montpellier 3) - Member of the Marseille Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts.
• Philippe RIGAUD: Medieval historian - Associated researcher at the Laboratory of Medieval and Modern Mediterranean Archaeology, Aix (LA3M CNRS).
• Charlyne SOMNY: Cultural mediator, in charge of the public at the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Museum.
• Giorgio SPADA: Underwater archaeologist - Director of the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Museum - Lecturer at the University of Nîmes.
• Flora YHARRASSARRY: Collections manager at the Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Museum.
• Claude VELLA: Associate professor - Researcher and lecturer at Aix-Marseille University, European Center for Research and Teaching of Environmental Geosciences (CEREGE) - UM 34 AIX-MARSEILLE UNIVERSITY, CNRS, IRD, Collège de France, INRAE. OSU Institut Pythéas.