Musée des Merveilles

The Musee des Merveilles in Tende is the archaeological museum dedicated to the nearby Vallee des Merveilles, a high valley in the Mercantour National Park at the foot of Mont Bego. The valley holds roughly 40,000 Bronze Age rock engravings dated between about 3,300 and 1,700 BC, depicting bulls, ploughing scenes, daggers and geometric signs. The museum shows casts, photographic surveys and original finds and places the imagery within the Ligurian-Alpine cult that saw Mont Bego as a sacred mountain. The geology, flora and fauna of the Mercantour are explained alongside. Anyone who makes it up here into the Roya valley leaves with the right context to then hike out to the petroglyphs themselves.