The star exhibit is a marmot: the mummy found in the summer of 2022 by a mountain guide on the Lyskamm glacier, which scientists regard as the oldest mummified find in Italy. Radiocarbon puts it around 6,600 years ago, in the Neolithic. It sits in the castle of Saint-Pierre, where the regional museum of natural science occupies 1,200 square metres.
What to see
The route opens on the ground floor with the room of coats of arms, the room of differences, the room of time and the room of rocks, and continues through spaces carved out of the castle. The present display opened on 25 November 2022 after years of work: the museum had been closed since 2008 for the restoration of the historic building and a complete rebuild of the exhibition.
Visiting
The collections are older than the museum. In 1905 the Société de la Flore Valdôtaine, founded in 1858 by the canons Georges Carrel and Édouard Bérard, opened a private museum; in 1934, unable to pay rent, it had to hand the collections to the Alpine military school, which kept them for nearly forty years in the Jocteau castle. Recovered in 1971, they have been in the castle of Saint-Pierre since 1977; the regional museum itself was established by law in 1985.
Our editors' tip
Pair it with the castle: one ticket, one route, and the rooms are built into the historic interiors. The operational branch with the library is elsewhere, at La Salle in the Marais centre, which is where you go for study material, not here.