and results of excavations undertaken in Susiana, as well as control over the whole archaeology of Persia. The Délégation lasted fifteen years, from 1897 to 1912, and its prestige was due to the character of Jacques De Morgan. A prehistorian by training, De Morgan’s great knowledge of Iran was the result of extensive travel between 1889 and 1891, from the Caucasus into and around Northern Persia, then over the whole country, and finally to Susa. When the French government appointed him to a position in Persia, he had already successfully managed the Service des Antiquités in Egypt.

De Morgan’s plans were initially very ambitious, with the whole of the archaeological wealth of Persia under his control. But De Morgan believed that the urgent work at Susa had to come first before all other projects and should never be sacrificed for the sake of hazardous ventures. So, facing a financial situation that did not allow him to diversify his research unless he jeopardized the studies at Susa, his efforts and those of the Délégation were essentially devoted to the Susa site. His important work at Susa greatly benefited both the louvre Museum and other scholars, and in the long term it seems that Jacques De Morgan was right about his priorities. However, he was criticized about his research choice and attacked by fellow workers, and by then his long, hard-working years in the Middle East had exhausted him. In 1912, De Morgan resigned, and with this the Délégation Scientifique Française en Perse came to an end.

The agreement that founded the Délégation was not repealed until 1927, and France’s archaeological interests were maintained by the Direction des Antiquités under command of André Godard until 1960 and the Institut Français de Recherche en Iran (IFRI). But while the Délégation ceased to exist after De Morgan’s departure, the excavations at Susa continued. After World War I, when France diversified its archaeological research into the Iranian plateau and along its borders, Susa and Susania remained the center of its activity. Roland de Mecquenem until 1946, then Roman Ghirshman, and finally Jean Perrot from 1968 have been successively responsible for the work in this area. Nothing less than two world wars and, in 1979, the Islamic Revolution in Iran, could interrupt nearly a century of French research in Susania.

The archaeological activity of France in most of the Near East goes back to the nineteenth century. Due to scientific concerns, politics, and economics other areas have been opened to research more recently. In Arabia France is presently engaged in numerous archaeological projects. Twice interrupted by world wars, and then, occasionally, by the repercussions of political events, the archaeological activity of France in the Near East and Egypt has carried on for two centuries and, as much as circumstances will allow it, it continues.

Nicole Chevalier

See also

Egypt: Dynastic; Egypt: Predynastic; Israel; Syro-Palestinian and Biblical Archaeology

Frere, John

(1740–1807)

John Frere was born in Norfolk, England, and graduated from Caius College, Cambridge. An antiquary and a member of the local upper-middle class, Frere was also high sheriff of Suffolk in 1766, was elected to Parliament for Norwich in 1799, and became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1771.

In 1797, Frere reported to the society of antiquaries of london that he had found stone tools (what are now described as Acheulean hand axes) in the same levels as the bones of long-extinct animals—four meters down—in undisturbed Pleistocene deposits in a brickpit at Hoxne, Suffolk. He argued that the overlying strata, which included evidence of a rise in sea level and half a meter of deposit, could only have been laid down over a very long period and that the stone tools and animal deposits had to be over 6,000 years old. Archaeologia in 1800 included a description of the find, a stratigraphic description, and a section of the deposit. Frere and his publication were politely ignored by the scientific establishment mainly because the conclusions seriously challenged the accepted date for the creation of human beings, which had been established in 1650 by Bishop james ussher, based on biblical calculations, as occurring on the evening of 22 October 4004 b.c. At