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ARCHAEOLOGY

Sion’s deathly history brought to life in new exhibition

Visitors to Sion will be able to explore the history of funeral rites in Switzerland over the past 7,000 years in a series of exhibitions and events starting this spring.

Sion’s deathly history brought to life in new exhibition
Sion is a unique archaelogical site in Switzerland. Photo: Sion Tourism

Archaeological evidence of human life in the Sion area, in the canton of Valais, dates back some 10,000 years and is particularly revealing about traditions and beliefs surrounding death and the afterlife.

Tombs and cemeteries dating back to the Neolithic period are present within a one kilometre area, making Sion a unique archaeological site in Switzerland.

From April 16th a series of events under the banner ‘10,000 years beneath the ground’ will aim to promote this special heritage to the public.

Among them is a walking tour (running to August 28th) taking in cemeteries from the past seven millennia, including Iron Age tombs, a Neolithic necropolis and an 8th century crypt.

Meanwhile at the city’s Penitencier museum an exhibition (to January 8th) will present artefacts relating to burial rites over a period of 7,000 years, from the Neolithic era to the Celtic period, the Roman Empire and the present day.

Speaking to The Local, cantonal archaeologist Caroline Brunetti said: “Compared with other towns in Switzerland, in Sion we have a historical continuity that is absolutely exceptional. We have cemeteries that are very representative of the period from 5,000 BC to today.”

“What’s important is the longevity, the fact that we have cemeteries that are very well conserved over a very long period.”

Artefacts from the sites include effigies, gold and bronze Neolithic jewellery, arms belonging to Celtic warriors and engraved steles – or tombstones – dating from 5,000BC “which are absolutely unique in Europe,” said Brunetti. “They are really magnificent”.

Also among Sion’s cachet is a cemetery from the 800BC where people were buried with vast riches beside them, and another from the Roman period containing well preserved statues representing divinity and animals, said Brunetti.  

The sheer variety of objects reveal the diversity of beliefs over the millennia and that “death was a totally integrated part of society”, the museum said in a statement.

“Changes in burial and cremation over the course of millennia reveal the evolution of concepts surrounding death and the afterlife,” it said.

A brochure entitled ‘Sion, immortal city’ will accompany the events.

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TODAY IN FRANCE

France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

France has paved the way towards paying reparations to more relatives of Algerians who sided with France in their country's independence war but were then interned in French camps.

France to compensate relatives of Algerian Harki fighters

More than 200,000 Algerians fought with the French army in the war that pitted Algerian independence fighters against their French colonial masters from 1954 to 1962.

At the end of the war, the French government left the loyalist fighters known as Harkis to fend for themselves, despite earlier promises it would look after them.

Trapped in Algeria, many were massacred as the new authorities took revenge.

Thousands of others who fled to France were held in camps, often with their families, in deplorable conditions that an AFP investigation recently found led to the deaths of dozens of children, most of them babies.

READ ALSO Who are the Harkis and why are they still a sore subject in France?

French President Emmanuel Macron in 2021 asked for “forgiveness” on behalf of his country for abandoning the Harkis and their families after independence.

The following year, a law was passed to recognise the state’s responsibility for the “indignity of the hosting and living conditions on its territory”, which caused “exclusion, suffering and lasting trauma”, and recognised the right to reparations for those who had lived in 89 of the internment camps.

But following a new report, 45 new sites – including military camps, slums and shacks – were added on Monday to that list of places the Harkis and their relatives were forced to live, the government said.

Now “up to 14,000 (more) people could receive compensation after transiting through one of these structures,” it said, signalling possible reparations for both the Harkis and their descendants.

Secretary of state Patricia Miralles said the decision hoped to “make amends for a new injustice, including in regions where until now the prejudices suffered by the Harkis living there were not recognised”.

Macron has spoken out on a number of France’s unresolved colonial legacies, including nuclear testing in Polynesia, its role in the Rwandan genocide and war crimes in Algeria.

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