“There might be further knowledge to be acquired, further questions to be asked today, stemming not from what others might have known, but what they might have ignored.”
Serge Moscovici, Essay on human history of nature, Paris, 1968

Patrimoines du sud was launched in February 2015. The journal was designed to be published in digital format on the former Languedoc-Roussillon region’s website but from the outset its title took into account the ongoing discussions relative to the merger between the two regions. This helped smooth the way for its adoption by the new Occitanie region. Patrimoines du sud remains the only heritage-themed digital journal to be published by a Regional Council in France.

The aim is to help disseminate research on heritage in the South of France to the academic community, research centres, and the cyber community more generally. Why? Because research is ongoing, including in heritage departments such as the French inventory of cultural heritage (Inventaire général du patrimoine culturel) which initiated the project. This accumulated knowledge needs to be disseminated as widely as possible, finding an audience while simultaneously demonstrating a high standard of excellence backed up by the scientific advisory board. How? Through a digital journal, the only publication system that can be free, widely circulated, has international visibility, editorial flexibility and enriched content.

The humanities and social sciences, the journal’s field of study, are relatively rarely found in regional publications. Patrimoines du sud therefore attempts to supplement the current offer in the fields of history (see issue 5 on Les patrimoines du protestantisme/Protestantist heritage), art history and ethnology, whether in terms of material heritage research (architecture, planning, furnishings, industrial heritage, landscapes, archaeology…) or immaterial research (cultural practices, know-how, memory...). Occitanie is the chosen geographic sector, but it can be further stretched through comparisons with other areas in France and abroad.

The journal wishes to encourage young scholars to publish their original work, as well as retain the potential to publish or reprint hitherto confidential studies that lacked an adequate source of dissemination. All of the issues published to date have contained contributions from students.

Major construction sites (Narbo Via in Narbonne [issue 2], the museum of Roman History in Nîmes) and museum reconstruction projects (Lodève [issue 9], Hérépian [issue 2], Museum of the Cevenol Valleys) are topical issues that form several potential sources of contributions (museography, promotion of collections, restoration projects) for Patrimoines du sud.

At the same time, there are no online publications featuring regional medieval archaeology, despite the major excavations currently taking place (Aniane, La Maladrerie, Ferrière-les-Verreries [see issue 3]…), while preventive archaeological excavation sites constantly provide new information that is important to report.

Municipal, diocesan and departmental archives are treasure troves that researchers can use or transcribe in their entirety. Publishing them with comments helps to expand sources for further research.

Original research is now being conducted on the history of architecture and landscapes, gardens and ancient parks, thanks to the discovery and preservation of unprecedented private acquisitions and the systematic inventory of items deposited in public archives and made available to researchers (issue 8: Les jardins historiques en Occitanie/Historical gardens in Occitanie).

Lastly, Occitanie’s industrial heritage has been the subject of in-depth investigation in recent decades. This vast body of research has paved the way for cross-discipline topics spanning the whole region with interesting points of comparison. In its 4^th issue focusing on Occitan marble, Patrimoines du sud analysed the extraction industry, starting with that of marble, with an approach that combined landscape, material remains, craftsmanship and the social use of materials.

The journal is biannual, with a combination of themed and general issues. In-depth articles are published alongside shorter Varia articles. The latter texts offer insights into discoveries, updates and reflections on current affairs and topics of research interest. These Varia also allow readers to discover specific work being studied by the General Inventory or to present the latest acquisition in a public collection.