Pierre-aux-Dames – Musée d’art et d’histoire
Visited 17 September 2008
South of Geneva lies the small municipality of Troinex. This area was absorbed into Savoy in 1754 to become Troinex Savoy, before returning to Geneva in 1815. A treaty was signed on 30 May 1817, making Troinex an independent municipality. During this period an official census of the region was conducted and 1819 finds the first recorded account of the Pierre-aux-Dames.
Several prehistoric monuments were recorded including a large mound with the Pierre-aux-Dames resting upon it’s top, accompanied by two or three other megaliths.
In 1877, the area began to be developed with roads and building plots. The mound was cut into revealing seven tombs dating from the late Bronze Age. According to the discoverers, whose excavations are poorly documented, the graves contained the bodies of a man and several women. It is unclear if the mound was completely destroyed at this point but the megalith was classified as a historic monument in 1921 and has been “maintained” at the Museum of Art and History in Geneva, since 1942.
The 2.5 meter long stone rests in the inner courtyard of the Museum and has doubled up as a water outlet for the garden. It is difficult to imagine how the stone originally rested on the mound as its base has now been levelled with concrete.
The municipality of Troinex asked for it’s return, but the Museum refused on the grounds of security, so in 1998, a high-quality copy was commissioned by the female mayor, M I Beatrice Luscher and created by sculptor, Lukas Grogg. This copy, as well as two other small megaliths, stand outside the Troinex town hall, the Place de la Mairie, on Chemin de la Grand Cour 2, 1256.
