———.1993. La conquête du passé, aux origines de l’archéologie. Paris: Editions Carre.

French Archaeology in Egypt and the Middle East

By the end of the eighteenth century, France began a political extension toward the Oriental world. Simultaneously, far from its national borders, it entered into archaeological research, first in Egypt, then in the Near East (i.e., the Asiatic possessions of the Ottoman Empire that came into existence as nations after World War I), and lastly in Persia (modern iran). Considering the importance of the archaeology undertaken by France in those countries, it is not feasible to catalogue or sum up nearly two hundred years of its archaeological work in this article. However it should be understood that the prestige of French archaeology lies less in the great width of its activities than in the simple fact that, more than once, these stand as landmarks in the history of the archaeological studies of the Ancient Near East.

The first contact between France and Eastern civilization happened in a rather striking way. In 1798, for intricate political, scientific, and ideological reasons, Napoleon Bonaparte decided to have scholars and engineers join his army in a military expedition to Egypt. His science crew’s mission was to obtain and collect all the information they could about Egypt, both ancient and modern.

Although the works and facts recorded about Coptic and Islamic monuments proved to be the most remarkable achievements of this expedition, the greatest immediate influence was the investigation of Pharaonic relics from antiquity. For instance, the knowledge of Upper Egyptian sites, so far virtually unknown, increased considerably. Vivant Denon was the first author to publish accounts of the expedition, in his Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute-Egypte, Pendant les Campagnes du Géneral Bonaparte en Egypte. This very successful work was the result of the first investigations of Upper Egypt in 1798, when Denon followed General Desaix, who was pursuing Mourad-Bey and his followers on their retreat south.

Edouard de Villiers and Prosper Jollois, two young engineers, made important additions to Denon’s accounts. Both men were members of a commission departing for Upper Egypt in early 1799 with numerous tasks, one of which was to draw the outlines of the Nile Valley. Fascinated by the monuments they encountered, of their own accord they made thousands of drawings and notes of them. With the full cooperation of the other members of the expedition, who had concentrated on the monuments of Lower Egypt, this vast collection of data was published in the monumental multivolume work Description de l’Égypte in late 1799. This exceptional work not only comprises the largest and most comprehensive collection of documents ever to have been published on Egypt in those days, but it is still referred to, and is seen as all the more precious as many of the sites it recorded no longer exist. The scientific achievements of the different expeditions constitute the most lasting and least questionable gain of Napoleon Bonaparte’s adventures in Egypt.

During a military expedition, on the eve of the land battle of Aboukir (1799), Captain Bouchard, as a consequence of prebattle trenching at Rosette, came across the famous “Rosetta” stone bearing inscriptions in two languages and three kinds of writing: hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. The importance of this find was immediately understood by scholars. England confiscated the stone after the Eastern Army surrendered to them, and however unfortunate this loss was for French scholars, it was no hindrance to jean-francois champollion. Working from a copy of the stone, in 1822 he established the foundations for deciphering hieroglyphic writing.

The exciting years at the close of the Age of Enlightenment at the end of the eighteenth century and those at the beginning of the nineteenth century mark the beginning of scientific Egyptology. France became involved in the protection of monuments and laid the foundations for its future research at these sites. auguste mariette, the excavator of Memphis Serapeum, was prominent in the creation of the “Service des Antiquités,” an organization that policed and protected archaeological sites, and the first museum in Egypt. A few years prior to this, between