Mosaïques Orbe
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Mini-museum · Orbe

Two thousand years underfoot

Nine Roman mosaics, still in place, under five contemporary pavilions.

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Boscéaz

Here the ground still speaks. The tesserae never left the villa: you cross them as you would a room, two centuries after Christ.

The estate

A palatial villa, a sixteen-hectare estate, some of the finest pavements in the Empire.

170

CE, the villa at its height

9

mosaics preserved

16 ha

of rural estate

200 m

of residential façade

Urba

A palatial villa in the plain

Around 160–180, a vast villa rustica rose at Boscéaz, two kilometres from Orbe. Pleasure courts, private baths, a Mithraeum, and rooms paved like a palace.

Destroyed in the Alamannic invasions, the estate became a medieval quarry. The mosaics stayed. They were rediscovered from 1841.

Today five pavilions protect them in situ. They were not taken to a museum: the museum was built around them.

Read the history

The pavements

Three doorways

Gods of the week, Cretan labyrinth, marine procession: three floors to open now.
All mosaics →

An open-air museum, under timber roofs

You do not visit display cases. You enter the rooms of a villa.

In situ

The mosaics were never lifted. They still occupy the floor of the pars urbana, under pavilions that shelter them from rain and frost.

A two-thousand-year story

Neolithic, Bronze Age, late Iron Age, Gallo-Roman villa, medieval quarry, nineteenth-century rediscovery. The place never truly slept.

Living conservation

The ninth mosaic, Achilles on Skyros, found in 1993, is still being restored. The museum shows that work too.

Tesserae

Mosaic of the deities of the week
The Labyrinth of Crete
Triton medallion
Squares and lozenges in trompe-l'œil
Rustic procession
Achilles on Skyros
Laurel-leaf pavement
Contemporary pavilion

The plain opens from May to October

Five pavilions, a model, museum silence. Allow two hours. The mosaics are not waiting: they are already there.

Hours and access