Why do we have so many different names for the same place? Scholars spent centuries arguing whether Bibracte was at Autun, Beaune, or right here on Mont Beuvray. Some say the name comes from a beaver, while others suggest a Latin term for a double fortification - though a second wall would have been a logistical nightmare since the stone from the outer wall was reused to build the second one.
Before the Romans showed up in 52 BC, this was a bustling urban center. It housed over thirty thousand people within a 135-hectare enclosure protected by a massive Murus Gallicus stone wall. It served as the capital of the Aedui, a powerful people who abandoned the hillfort in favour of Autun, the former Augustodunum. After they left, the site remained undisturbed and largely unexamined, essentially remaining untouched in the woods until modern archaeology discovered it.
It took until the 19th century for Jacques-Gabriel Bulliot to finally shift the scholarly consensus back to this spot. He noticed the old chapel and the embankment of a nemeton, even though his peers at the time completely ignored his findings. Now, it is a cooperative European archaeological park where teams from all over - from Brno to Vienna - dig for the secrets of Gaulish culture.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nicolo Ciampini
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