Ernest Babelon

Ernest Charles François Babelon (born November 7, 1854 in Sarrey , Haute-Marne department , † January 3, 1924 in Paris ) was a French numismatist and classical archaeologist .

Ernest Babelon trained as an archivist at the École nationale des chartes from 1874 to 1878 . He wrote his thesis on the subject of Les bourgeois du roi au Moyen Âge . From 1878 he worked for the Cabinet des Médailles . In 1890 he became deputy director, Henri Michel Lavoix , and two years later he became director of the museum himself and remained there for 32 years until 1924. His successor was Adolphe Dieudonné . During the First World War he directed the relocation of art treasures from the museum and after the war the reorganization. In 1902 he also became a lecturer in numismatics and glyptics , and in 1908 professor at the chair for Cours de numismatique antique et médiévale at the Collège de France . With Salomon Reinach he carried out excavations in North Africa in 1883 . In 1908 Babelon became president of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres . His son Jean Babelon was also director of the Cabinet des Médailles .

Babelon initially devoted himself to medieval studies. Early on his interest began to switch to ancient numismatics , where he developed into a respected specialist. He was also a specialist in ancient oriental languages , in this area he worked closely with his friend François Lenormant . Babelon became a central figure in French archeology. He sat on several important commissions and was co-editor of the Gazette archéologique . His numismatic work had two directions. On the one hand he wrote numismatic catalogs, on the other hand he dared to synthesize his individual studies in comprehensive works. His handbook Traité des monnaies grecques et romaines remained unfinished, and the plan was to build on the William Henry Waddington collection to record all the numismatic knowledge of his time. His corpus work, Recueil général des monnaies grecques d'Asie mineure , developed with Théodore Reinach , in which the mints of Asia Minor were recorded, also remained unfinished. Due to its abundance of material, the work is of scientific importance to this day.

With a two-volume work on Rome and the Teutons, he intervened in the political discourse on the Saar region towards the end of the First World War . He was one of the protagonists of the Comité d'études , which existed from 1917 to 1918 , which collected arguments for the Saar area to belong to France. Based on the work of Paul Vidal de la Blache, he favored a military protectorate, but quoted Paul Vidal de la Blache incorrectly.

Babelon has received numerous awards and honors. For his services to the Cabinet des Médailles , he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor . In 1899 he was awarded the Medal of the Royal Numismatic Society , and in 1922 the Archer M. Huntington Medal .

Fonts (selection)

• Carthage. Ernest Leroux, Paris 1896.
• Traité des monnaies grecques et romaines. 11 volumes, Leroux, Paris 1901–1933.
• Recueil général des monnaies grecques d'Asie mineure. Commencé par William Henry Waddington, continué et complété par Ernest Babelon et Théodore Reinach. Leroux, Paris 1908-1925.
• Le Rhin dans l'histoire. Leroux, Paris 1916-1917.
  • Vol. 1: L'antiquité. Gaulois et Germains. 1916.
  • Vol. 2: Les Francs de l'Est. Français et Allemands. 1917.

literature

• Helmut Schubert: Babelon, Ernest. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , column 41 f.

Web links

Wikisource: Auteur: Ernest Babelon  - Sources and full texts (French)

• Biography at sacra-moneta.com (French)
• Digitized books by Ernest Babelon in the Digital Library Numis