Ernest Will

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Ernest Will (born April 25, 1913 in Uhrwiller ; died September 24, 1997 in Paris ) was a French classical archaeologist .

Study and Middle East

Ernest Will attended the Protestant grammar school founded by Johannes Sturm in Strasbourg in 1537 before he began studying the humanities at the University of Strasbourg . After his license he studied from 1933 onwards at the École normal supérieure in Paris Classical Classical Studies . After graduating in 1936, he became a student of Charles Picard in 1937 at the École française d'Athènes . Here he was involved in the French excavations in Thasos , Delos and Delphi . The outbreak of the Second World War ended the collaboration: Ernest Will was drafted to Beirut . After the Compiègne armistice , he returned to France in 1940.

From 1940 to 1943 he worked as a teacher at the Lycée Thiers in Marseille , in 1944 he was assistant to the archaeologist Charles Dugas at the University of Lyon , in 1945 he was finally a teacher at the Collège-lycée Ampère in Lyon . From October 1946 he was, together with Jean Starcky, one of the first employees of the Institut français d'archéologie de Beyrouth founded by Henri Seyrig in the same year . Here he specialized in his research on the Middle East in Hellenistic times and the cultural interactions between the Middle East and the Graeco-Romanesque world. With Robert Amy he worked on the study of the Temple of Baal at Palmyra and conducted research on many aspects of society and life in Palmyra.

Academic career and directorates

In 1951 Ernest Will returned to France and became an assistant at the Chair of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Lille . In 1953 he was with the dissertation Le relief cultuel gréco-Roman in Paris doctorate . From 1953 to 1963 he taught as professor of Greek language and literature, art history and archeology in Lille, from 1963 to 1970 Greek studies at the University of Paris , after its restructuring from 1970 to 1973 art history and archeology at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne . In addition to his professorships, from 1953 to 1968 he was director of the historical antiquities of the regions of North and Picardy (Antiquités historiques du Nord-Picardie). He was one of the few who recognized the opportunities offered by aerial archeology and had the region's specialist at the time, Roger Agache , use this method to investigate not only prehistoric but also Gallo-Roman structures. Will was particularly interested in the villae rusticae . For each year of his directorate he published a report on the archaeological activities in his area of ​​responsibility in the journal Gallia , and he also presented important findings in the Revue du Nord .

In 1973, Ernest Will returned to Beirut as the successor to Daniel Schlumberger in the management of the Institut français d'archéologie de Beyrouth . In 1977 the institute français d'archéologie du Proche-Orient emerged from the institution under his direction , with branches in Damascus and Amman . One of his main research areas was the Qasr el-Abd near the Jordanian Iraq el-Amir . In 1980 he had to return to France because of the ongoing Lebanese civil war . There he took his chair in Paris again until he retired in 1982. He continued to run Syria magazine , which he took over in 1978, until 1997.

Memberships and honors

Ernest Will was elected to the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres in 1973. He was a member of the Société des antiquaires de France , the German Archaeological Institute and the British Academy . In 1992 he became a member of the École française d'Extrême-Orient .

He was Commander of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques , officer of the Legion of Honor and officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres . A festschrift was dedicated to him on the occasion of his 70th birthday .

Publications (selection)

Maurice Sartre has compiled a bibliography of the academic work of Ernest Will.

  • Le relief cultuel gréco-romain. Contribution to the history of the art of the empire romain. Boccard, Paris 1955.
  • with Henri Seyrig , Robert Amy : Le Temple de Bêl à Palmyre. Volume 2. P. Geuthner, Paris 1975.
  • Le sanctuaire de la déesse syrienne. Boccard, Paris 1985.
  • with François Larché: Iraq al Amir: Le château du Tobiade Hyrcan (= Bibliothèque archéologique et historique. Volume 132). Two volumes. Geuthner, Paris 1991.
  • Les Palmyréniens. La Venise des sables. Armand Colin, Paris 1992.

literature

  • Roger Agache, Jean-Claude Blanchet: Nécrologie d'Ernest Will (1913–1997). In: Revue archéologique de Picardie. Issue 3–5, 1997, pp. 5-7 ( digitized version ).
  • Roger Hanoune: Ernest Will, membre de l'Institut (1913–1997). In: Revue du Nord. Edition 323, 1997, p. 3 ( digitized version ).

Remarks

  1. ^ Communication from the Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient for June 2, 1992 .
  2. ^ Mélanges offerts à Ernest Will (= Revue du Nord. Special edition 260). Université de Lille III, Villeneuve d'Ascq 1984.
  3. ^ Maurice Sartre: Bibliography d'Ernest Will. In: Syria. Volume 75, 1998, pp. 1-8 ( digitized version ).
personal data
SURNAME Will, Ernest
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French classical archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Uhrwiller
DATE OF DEATH September 24, 1997
Place of death Paris