Charles Clermont-Ganneau
Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau (born February 19, 1846 in Paris , † February 15, 1923 there ) was a French orientalist and archaeologist.
Life
Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau was the son of the mystic and sculptor Simon Ganneau . After the death of his father in 1851 he was looked after by Théophile Gautier . He attended the Institut national des langues et civilizations orientales in Paris, where he learned Arabic (he also spoke other languages such as Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic). He then worked as a translator at the consulates in Jerusalem and Constantinople, which he also used for archaeological research.
In 1873/1874 he identified the place of the biblical Gezer , where he also excavated. He also led expeditions to Syria (1881), Crete (1895) and Elephantine (1906-1908). In 1890 he became professor of oriental archeology and epigraphy at the Collège de France .
His greatest success was the acquisition of the Mescha stele , the oldest known Semitic inscription, for France, in which the German Empire (with the support of the Ottoman Empire) was also interested at the time, which also led to diplomatic entanglements. The Bedouin tribe who found the stele broke it into several pieces in 1869, some of which were lost. Immediately before that, Clermont-Ganneau had sent an Arab confidante to the Bedouins to make a copy of the inscription. This enabled Clermont-Ganneau to reconstruct the stele later.
Clermont-Ganneau uncovered some archaeological forgeries, such as that of an allegedly biblical manuscript acquired by the British Museum in 1883.
In 1871 he discovered a warning sign in Jerusalem that warned unauthorized persons against entering the temple and threatened the death penalty (it later came to Istanbul). During investigations for the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1874 he examined, among other things, rock tombs around Jerusalem and the Paternoster Church , and dug in Emmaus Nikopolis .
Honors
In 1875 Charles Clermont-Ganneau was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor .
Fonts (selection)
- La Stele de Mesa, Roi de Moab. Paris 1870 ( digitized )
- L'imagerie phénicienne et la mythologie iconologique chez les Grecs. Paris 1880 ( digitized version )
- Etudes d'archéologie orientale, 2 volumes, Vieweg, Paris 1880, 1897, ( digitized volume 1 )
- Les fraudes archéologiques. Leroux, Paris 1885 ( digitized )
- Palestine inconnue, Paris 1886 ( digitized version )
- Recueil d'archéologie orientale, 8 volumes, Paris 1888–1924
- Les antiquités semitiques, Paris 1890 (inaugural lecture at the Collège de France; digitized version )
- Album d'antiquités orientales. Paris 1897
- Archaeological Researches in Palestine 1873–1874, 2 volumes, London 1896 ( digitized volume 1 , digitized volume 2 )
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Clermont-Ganneau, Charles |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Clermont-Ganneau, Charles Simon (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French orientalist and archaeologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 19, 1846 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paris |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 15, 1923 |
| Place of death | Paris |