Col de Pierre Pertuis (el. 827 m.) is a mountain pass in the Jura Mountains in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It connects

Sonceboz Sonceboz-Sombeval is a municipality in the Jura bernois administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located in the French-speaking Bernese Jura (''Jura Bernois''). History Sonceboz-Sombeval is first mentioned in 866 as ...

and

Tavannes Tavannes is a municipality in the Jura bernois administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is located in the French-speaking part of the canton in the Jura mountains. History The area around Tavannes was traversed by ...

. The name of the pass comes from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

: ''Petra pertusa'', meaning ''broken rock''. The pass road has been dated to the second half of the 1st century AD. A large inscription on the north side of the road lists Marcus Dunius Paternus, the ''duumvir'' of the Helvetii Colony

Aventicum Aventicum was the largest town and capital of Roman Switzerland (Helvetia or Civitas Helvetiorum). Its remains are beside the modern town of Avenches. The city was probably created ''ex nihilo'' in the early 1st century AD, as the capital of ...

, as the builder of the road. This inscription honors the

emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereignty, sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), ...

and dates to around 200 AD. ItGérard Coulon, "Les voies romaines en Gaule", Éditions Errance, 2013, pp. 158-9. probably refers to the renovation and expansion of the existing road and the widening of the rocky gate leading into the pass. The pass road connected the Aventicum (modern

Avenches Avenches () is a Swiss municipality in the canton of Vaud, located in the district of Broye-Vully. History The roots of Avenches go back to the Celts. A tribe of Helvetians had built a settlement on the hills of Bois de Châtel, south of the ...

)-Salodurum (modern

Solothurn Solothurn ( , ; french: Soleure ; it, Soletta ; rm, ) is a town, a municipality, and the capital of the canton of Solothurn in Switzerland. It is located in the north-west of Switzerland on the banks of the Aare and on the foot of the Weissens ...

Augusta Raurica Augusta Raurica is a Roman archaeological site and an open-air museum in Switzerland located on the south bank of the Rhine river about 20 km east of Basel near the villages of Augst and Kaiseraugst. It is the site of the oldest known ...

road with the Vesontio (modern

Besançon Besançon (, , , ; archaic german: Bisanz; la, Vesontio) is the prefecture of the department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzer ...

)-Epomanduodurum (modern

Mandeure Mandeure () is a commune in the Doubs department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France. History Mandeure was a Roman town called Epomanduodurum. It reached its apogee in the 2nd century. The Roman theater was one of the larg ...

Kembs Kembs () is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France. It was founded during Roman times as the city of Cambete. Population See also * Communes of the Haut-Rhin département The following is a list of the 366 ...

road. The pass was first mentioned in a record from 1179 as the boundary between the dioceses of

Lausanne , neighboring_municipalities= Bottens, Bretigny-sur-Morrens, Chavannes-près-Renens, Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Crissier, Cugy, Écublens, Épalinges, Évian-les-Bains (FR-74), Froideville, Jouxtens-Mézery, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Lugrin (FR ...

and

Basel , french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese , neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...

. It remained the border between the powerful bishops until the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and ...

. The first modern road was built in 1752 by the

Abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The ...

Moutier-Grandval Abbey Moutier-Grandval Abbey was a Benedictine abbey near the villages of Moutier and Grandval in today's Jura bernois administrative district in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It was founded around 640, when Grandval already existed; Moutier g ...

and the

Vogt During the Middle Ages, an (sometimes given as modern English: advocate; German: ; French: ) was an office-holder who was legally delegated to perform some of the secular responsibilities of a major feudal lord, or for an institution such as ...

Erguel Erguël is an medieval seigniory of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Basel, and under protectorate of Biel/Bienne, under military jurisdiction from 1335, in the now called valley of St.-Imier, in the now Bernese Jura, Switzerland. The Sire of the ...

. This road linked the cities of

and

Biel , french: Biennois(e) , neighboring_municipalities= Brügg, Ipsach, Leubringen/Magglingen (''Evilard/Macolin''), Nidau, Orpund, Orvin, Pieterlen, Port, Safnern, Tüscherz-Alfermée, Vauffelin , twintowns = Iserlohn (Germany) ...

. After the 1797 French victory and the

Treaty of Campo Formio The Treaty of Campo Formio (today Campoformido) was signed on 17 October 1797 (26 Vendémiaire VI) by Napoleon Bonaparte and Count Philipp von Cobenzl as representatives of the French Republic and the Austrian monarchy, respectively. The trea ...

, the pass became part of France. After

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

's defeat and the

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon B ...

, the pass and the surrounding area were assigned to the Canton of Bern in 1815. Bern widened part of the pass road in a section between Bözingen (now part of Biel) and Courtelary. In 1874 a railway tunnel was completed through the pass which linked Sonceboz and Tavannes. The tunnel is now part of the

Sonceboz-Sombeval–Moutier railway The Sonceboz-Sombeval–Moutier railway is a single-track standard gauge railway line of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB). History The line from Biel/Bienne via Sonceboz-Sombeval to Moutier was built by the Jura bernois (JB) and was part of th ...

. The first road that was passable for automobiles was built during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

by the corps of engineers of the Swiss Army. In 1932, a new road was built employing the jobless due to the Great Depression. In November 1997, a 2100-meter-long tunnel was opened for the A-16 ''Autobahn''.

References

Pierre Pertuis Pierre Pertuis Mountain passes of the canton of Bern {{Berne-geo-stub