The Musée du Pays Châtillonnais – Trésor de Vix, home to one of Europe’s most important archaeological collections, was targeted in a theft on July 24, 2026, that sent shock waves through the cultural world.

The stolen artifact was the celebrated torque of the Princess of Vix, a sixth-century BC Celtic gold collar made from a single piece weighing approximately 480 grams. The extraordinary jewel is the defining symbol of the renowned Vix Treasure.

The theft took place in broad daylight. According to initial reports, the perpetrators entered the museum posing as ordinary visitors, made their way to the display case containing the artifact and quickly left the building in front of other tourists, without staging a dramatic break-in. The method showed that even advanced security systems can remain vulnerable when criminals exploit the normal flow of visitors.

The theft carries even greater symbolic weight because it occurred just one week after a failed nighttime intrusion and eight months after an earlier attack on the same museum. Around €150,000 had been invested over the past two years to strengthen security through new cameras, reinforced doors and surveillance systems. Nevertheless, those measures failed to stop what appears to have been a professionally planned operation.

The collar belonged to the so-called Princess of Vix, a powerful aristocratic woman who lived more than 2,500 years ago. Before becoming one of the symbols of European archaeology, her torque was tangible evidence of the authority held by a woman in the second half of the sixth century BC, when Celtic Europe maintained intense commercial, cultural and political ties with the Mediterranean.

Her story resurfaced only in January 1953, when archaeologists René Joffroy, Maurice Moisson and René Lagorgette discovered a monumental tomb at the foot of Mont Lassois.