The Chair of National Antiquities was created in 1905 in a very special context.

The University was only interested in the "classical   "  civilizations: the Middle East (Egypt and Mesopotamia), Greece and Rome. Despite the attention paid, since Louis-Philippe and especially Napoleon III, to the Gauls and Gallo-Roman remains, no teaching was devoted to them. However, Franco-German antagonism, exacerbated since the 1870 war, was stirring political and cultural circles. Novels, poems, plays and operas put the spotlight on " our ancestors the Gauls " and made heroes of Vercingetorix, while the Germans glorified Arminius.

Camille Jullian was born in 1859. At the age of eleven , as a high school student in Marseille, he had listened to his history teacher talk about the grim events unfolding on the Eastern Front. The teacher had in his hand Julius Caesar's Gallic War. The Germans were the Romans. The French were the Gauls. Julius Caesar : Bismarck. Vercingétorix : Gambetta. Jullian, the first, wanted to anchor the history of Gaul in higher education. When the university refused, he was accepted by the Collège de France - - in competition with... Durkheim ! A powerful and symbolic gesture : the 1914 war was not far off. From 1907 to 1914, Jullian published the first four volumes of his great History of Gaul. During the war, his lectures were inspired by a patriotism that today is too easily described as " nationaliste ". He went on to write four further volumes of his Histoire de la Gaule. He died in 1933.

Jullian had conferred an extraordinary aura on the teaching of the history of Gaul (still ignored at university). Albert Grenier (from 1935 to 1948), then Paul-Marie Duval (from 1964 to 1982) more or less followed in Jullian's footsteps, although they gave their professorships different titles.

When I was elected to the Collège in 1984, I insisted on taking up Jullian's old title " Antiquités Nationales ". For reasons that differed from his : because the works that were transforming our towns and countryside (remodelling urban centers, parking lots, freeways, TGVs, and so many others) were ravaging our archaeological heritage. Our " national antiquities " were being killed off. As Jullian denounced France's indifference to its past, I wanted to draw attention to the massacre that was taking place. That was twenty years ago. Since then, the massacre has been prohibited by law, and French archaeology has come a long way, even if we are still far from an ideal, or even satisfactory, situation.

Since I took over, the Chair of National Antiquities has had two missions :

1. To attempt to advance analysis and reflection on subjects that relate Gaul to our world today. What does " la Gaule " mean, how did it come into being, and what was ? What was the role of the conqueror (Caesar) ? How were myths, images and heroes created ?
2. To publicize recent discoveries, based on worksites, publications and exhibitions, to bring to my seminars the people in charge of the main archaeological operations, and to invite foreign colleagues specializing in the " Celtic world ". These confrontations enable us to reflect on our methods and conclusions.

Inrap is a public administrative research establishment under the supervision of the Ministries of Culture and Research. Its role is to preserve and scientifically study the national archaeological heritage threatened by regional development projects, by carrying out diagnostics and excavations, and then to disseminate the results of this work.