French and British archaeologists had existed for several decades, and the French undoubtedly wished to ensure that the British could not exercise prior rights to Susa because of the work done by Loftus. In 1897, the French government created the Délégation Scientifique Française en Perse and provided it with funding unprecedented in the history of archaeology. The fifteen-year history of the Délégation Scientifique is inseparable from the career of Jacques Jean Marie de Morgan.

The son of a Welsh mining engineer, Jack or Jacques Jean Marie de Morgan followed in his father’s footsteps and graduated from the French Ecole des Mines. Although his geological work took him around the world, he also nurtured a childhood passion for prehistory (his paternal uncle was a Parisian antiquities dealer) and indulged it whenever his professional activities permitted. After a visit to the Caucasus, de Morgan explored northern Persia between 1889 and 1891, eventually arriving at Susa. In 1891, he was appointed director of the Cairo Museum, and from 1892 to 1897, he served as director-general of the Service of Antiquities in Egypt. De Morgan was appointed director of the Délégation Scientifique in 1897 and set up camp at Susa at the end of the year.

The situation was insecure as pillaging tribes frequently crossed the Ottoman-Persian border to raid Khuzistan, so in 1898, in order to protect his staff, de Morgan began the construction of a residence and headquarters on the north side of the Acropolis. Made entirely of bricks recovered from the Susa excavations, the building was constructed in the form of a fortified medieval chateau. The original team included some of de Morgan’s colleagues from Egypt. Although de Morgan had published a book on field methods in archaeology, in Egypt he had incurred the scorn of sir william matthew flinders petrie for the poor standard of his excavations, and the techniques employed at Susa continued to be extremely crude.

De Morgan not only tunneled but at times employed over 1,000 men to excavate a 100-meter-long grande tranchee (“large trench”), which he took down in 5-meter levels. The returns were staggering, but activity was not restricted to Susa. Between 1899 and 1902, de Morgan investigated numerous prehistoric sites in Mazandaran, Gurgan, Azerbaijan, and the Talish regions; in 1902–1903, the Délégation Scientifique worked at Tepe Musyan, northwest of Susa; and in 1909, de Morgan was involved in the survey of the plain of Varamin near Tehran and dug at the prehistoric site of Rayy.

The original objectives of the Délégation Scientifique were not exclusively archaeological, as de Morgan had every intention of conducting other scientific research, especially in geography, geology, and natural history. However, even though the funding for the Délégation was the envy of every other contemporary archaeologist, it was insufficient to support such varied research. Despite the uninterrupted flow of treasures back to the Louvre and despite the many volumes published by the Délégation, de Morgan was severely criticized by some of his colleagues for pursuing only archaeological investigations. Exhausted by these attacks, worn down by the great length of time he had spent in Egypt and Persia, and bristling from accusations of stealing, de Morgan resigned from the Délégation in 1912 and was succeeded by de Mecquenem, who retained the directorship until 1946.

The 1895 agreement stipulated that all jewelry and other objects of gold and silver were the property of the Iranian government but that the French could buy half at a reasonable price and had first option on the other half if the government chose to dispose of it. The French were also permitted to take half of all other archaeological materials, including engravings, statues, and inscriptions. Despite these generous conditions, de Morgan was dissatisfied and, with the help of the French legation, worked to secure even more. In 1900, a definitive version of the treaty was signed in Paris during a state visit by Muzaffar el-Din Shah (1896–1907), and the new treaty gave de Morgan all archaeological material from Susa. The 1900 treaty also stipulated that any request by another foreign expedition to excavate at any other site in Iran required the approval of the French government. Meanwhile, legal and illegal excavations by Iranian antiquities dealers flourished. One American missionary who visited