Henri Seyrig

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Corinthian Skyphos, ca.740 BC. Chr .; Legate of Henri Seyrig to the Louvre

Henri Arnold Seyrig (born November 10, 1895 in Héricourt ( Haute-Saône ); died January 21, 1973 in Neuchâtel ) was a French archaeologist , numismatist and historian . From 1929 he was the director of the antiquities administration in the French mandate areas of Lebanon and Syria and head of the Institut français d'archéologie du Proche-Orient in Beirut .

Life

Henri Seyrig was born to Abel Seyrig (garde général des forêts) and Julia de Lacroix into an upper-class, Calvinist family. His grandfather was the engineer Théophile Seyrig . In Alsace, Germany , he first attended a German school in Mulhouse , and later he went to the Protestant boarding school École des Roches in Normandy . Seyrig received his English education in Oxford in 1913 .

During the First World War , Seyrig was used as a soldier in the French army in Verdun and was awarded the Croix de guerre . In 1917 he was transferred to the Turkish front near Saloniki , where he came into contact with the world of antiquity.

After studying at the Sorbonne with Victor Bérard (1864-1931) he passed the Agrégation in 1922 and won a competition as a member of the École française d'Athènes in Greece, where he stayed for seven years and in 1928 became its general secretary.

In 1929 Seyrig was appointed "Directeur général des Antiquités de Syrie et du Liban" in Beirut on the recommendation of the archaeologist René Dussaud as the successor to Charles Virolleaud . Syria and Lebanon had been French mandate areas since 1922 . Seyrig drafted the antiquities law enacted by the “High Commissioner for Syria and Lebanon” on November 7, 1933, and its implementing provisions ( Réglement sur les Antiquités ), created rules for the division of the finds and issued the excavation licenses. In Beirut ( Musée national de Beyrouth , 1942) and Damascus ( Musée national de Damas , 1936) he contributed to the founding of the museums and to the regional museums in As-Suwaida in Hauran , Palmyra , Aleppo (1931) and Latakia . In the case of major international archeology projects in the sanctuary of Baalbek , Palmyra and Krak des Chevaliers , he ensured that modern colonization was displaced in favor of the excavations.

After the French surrender in Europe in June 1940 and before the British occupation of Syria and Lebanon in June 1941, Seyrig first went to Mexico and then on to New York , where he worked for the Forces françaises libres . After the end of the war he returned to Beirut and became director of the “Institut français d'archéologie du Proche-Orient” (IFAPO) for twenty years. Seyrig now had strong ties to research institutions in the USA and was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton on several occasions between 1964 and 1969 . In 1967 he retired and moved from Beirut to Switzerland . Daniel Schlumberger was his successor in Beirut .

Seyrig married Hermine de Saussure in 1930. The daughter Delphine Seyrig , later actress and director , was born in Beirut in 1932.

Seyrig became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1952 and a corresponding member of the British Academy in 1955 . The numismatists honored him with the Archer M. Huntington Medal in 1952 and with the Medal of the Royal Numismatic Society in 1961 .

Seyrig owned a large collection of Byzantine lead seals , which is now in the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris, and some antiques from his possession were donated to the Louvre in Paris .

Fonts (selection)

  • Antiquites syriennes . Series 2-6. Geuthner, Paris 1934–1966.
  • Cachets d'archives publiques de quelques villes de la Syrie romaine . Beirut 1940.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jean-Pierre Thiollet : Henri Seyrig. In: Ders .: Je m'appelle Byblos. H & D, Paris 2005, p. 257.
  2. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed July 29, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Seyrig, Henri
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Seyrig, Henri Arnold
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French archaeologist, numismatist and historian
DATE OF BIRTH November 10, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Héricourt
DATE OF DEATH January 21, 1973
Place of death Neuchâtel