Chamalières (; Auvergnat: ) is a commune in the Puy-de-Dôme department, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, central France.INSEE commune file
With 17,509 inhabitants (2023), Chamalières is the fourth-largest town in the department. It lies adjacent to the west of Clermont-Ferrand and about from Lyon.
History Several thousand wooden Gallo-Roman ex-votos, most of them anthropomorphic standing figures, also including images of limbs and internal organs, dated by associated coins to the first century, were recovered from the shrine at the mineral springs known as the Source des Roches ("Rock Spring"). An inscribed lead tablet found at the spring is a major source of information on the Gaulish language. A comparable cache of Gaulish ex-voto were recovered from a sanctuary at the sources of the Seine, sacred to Sequana.
Population
Notable places Chamalières is the place where the Banque de France located its printing works in 1923, which printed former French franc banknotes, and now prints Euro and CFA franc banknotes.
People Raoul Lufbery (1885–1918), French-American fighter pilot and flying ace in World War I Pierre Schoendoerffer (1928–2012), film director Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (1926-2020), politician, President of France (1974-1981), mayor of Chamalières (1967-1974) Claude Giraud (born 1936), stage and film actor; voice over actor for Robert Redford, Tommy Lee Jones, Alan Rickman Renaud Camus (born 1946), author and essayist Daniel Vernet (c. 1945–2018), former editor-in-chief of Le Monde. Pierre Woodman (born Pierre André Gerbier ín 29.April 1963) porn director Oumine Ouahioune (born Oumine Hassan Yusif Pontoise Ouahioune [born 1973] retired soccer player Centre-back Jean-Marie Luton (1942–2020), aerospace engineer, Director General of the European Space Agency (1990–1997), and chairman and CEO of Arianespace (1997–2002)
See also Communes of the Puy-de-Dôme department
References
Further reading
External links
Official website ex-votos from the Source des Roches on display at the Musée Bargoin, Clermont-Ferrand.