Calendrier gaulois et dieu de Coligny

The god of Coligny corresponds to a bronze statue (1.74 m), exhumed in multiple fragments at a place called ""en Verpois"" (north of the commune). (north of the commune). It represents an athletic young man, naked, with curly hair, probably the god Mars. The missing eyes were probably represented by glass beads. The raised right arm was resting on a staff. Above the hair, a smooth band appears which allowed the attachment of a headdress, probably a helmet (disappeared). The left arm is unfortunately incomplete. The meaning of these naked Mars, whose distribution is practically limited to northern Gaul, is undoubtedly different from that of the armoured Mars. Here the god is practically deprived of his military and warlike appearance; he could be the equivalent of Teutates, his Gallic counterpart. Dating: 2nd half of the first century.

The Gallic calendar : discovered in the same place, it is also from the same period as the god Mars.
It consists of a large rectangular bronze plate (1.48 m x 0.80 m), broken into 150 fragments. Although incomplete, it is reputed to bear the longest known inscription in the Gallic language, written here in Latin characters: about 600 different words are preserved! It is a "lunisolar" type of calendar: the months are punctuated by the phases of the moon. Five years are represented, each comprising 12 so-called "ordinary" months, alternately of 29 and 30 days, to come as close as possible to the solar year of 365 days. However, two "intercalary" months have been added (one every 2.5 years), to avoid too great a discrepancy between calendar time and the reality of the seasons. Each month has a name and is divided into two fortnights separated by the word atenoux (?). Some months are noted ""mat"" (good), others ""anmat"" (bad). The days have no names. They are marked by a hole in which a wooden peg was placed and advanced daily. A certain number of notations are not translated: they may refer to particular festivals or ceremonies that took place on that day. The perforations correspond to the location of pegs used to mark the days.

It is assumed that the calendar and the statue were originally placed in a temple. Religious use would explain the permanence of this calendar, which was based on a very ancient system of counting time and was abandoned in Roman times after the adoption of the Julian calendar in the middle of the first century BC.