Archéa, Archaeological museum in Louvres, Val-d'Oise, France

Archéa is an archaeological museum in Louvres, in a building designed by Bruno Pantz Architecte that opened on 10 September 2010. Its facade has a broad overhanging upper section clad in flat light grey panels, a horizontal band with the dark inscription "ARCHÉA", and a recessed ground level enclosed by tall glass panels in a dark frame. Inside are an introduction room on the pays de France, a permanent exhibition room, a temporary exhibition room, an auditorium, an educational activity room and a documentation centre.

The museum began in the late 1970s as an association-run museum founded by the Groupe de recherche historique et archéologique de Louvres-en-Parisis, after digs at the Tour Saint-Rieul uncovered a Merovingian cemetery with five aristocratic tombs. It became municipal, passed to the communauté de communes in 2001, and moved into a new building by architect Bruno Pantz on 10 September 2010.

The museum's name comes from the Greek word for archaeology, and its collections stem largely from preventive digs carried out before road and airport works. The ceramics of the Ysieux valley, owned by the Mucem in Marseille, are deposited here. The Orville site keeps experimental reconstructions: a Carolingian weaving hut and a raised granary built on excavated ground plans.

The museum is in Louvres, in the eastern Val-d'Oise. The building has a temporary exhibition room, an auditorium, a teaching room and a documentation centre. The permanent route runs chronologically from the Palaeolithic to the 18th century and is doubled by a thematic approach.

The museum's name comes from the Greek word for origins, archē, fitting a collection that traces the region from the Palaeolithic to the 18th century. Its permanent route displays just over 700 objects drawn from 87 archaeological sites across the Roissy Pays de France area.