Jacques de Morgan

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Jacques de Morgan (1892)

Jacques Jean Marie de Morgan (born June 3, 1857 in Huisseau-sur-Cosson , France, † June 12, 1924 in Marseille ) was an engineer, geologist , Egyptologist , Near Eastern archaeologist and numismatist .

Life

Jacques de Morgan studied at the École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris and left it in 1882 to look for gold in England, Europe, the East Indies and Malacca . He led scientific legations to the Caucasus (1886 to 1889) and Persia (1889 to 1891).

From 1892 to 1897, de Morgan was general manager of the Service des Antiquités d'Egypte in Cairo . He undertook excavations in Dahshur , where he discovered the graves of the princesses Mereret and Khnumit , whose extraordinary jewelry can now be seen in the Museum of Cairo . Furthermore, de Morgan discovered the mastaba of the Mereruka in Saqqara in 1893, exposed the temple of Kom Ombo in 1893 , found the tomb of Queen Neithhotep in Naqada in 1897 and led the first scientific expedition to the Sinai .

He then worked in Susa , Persia from 1897 to 1907 . There, under his direction, the Narām Sîn stele was found, which is now in the Louvre. His collaborators Gustave Jéquier and Jean-Vincent Scheil found three fragments of diorite in December 1901 and January 1902 , which when put together resulted in a stele over two meters high and almost 50 cm in diameter. They had found the Codex Hammurapi , one of the oldest surviving sets of laws in the ancient world.

In 1892, de Morgan published an account of his trips to Persia. In 1891 he had visited Marcel and Jane Dieulafoy's excavation work near Qasr-e Shirin and reported in the magazine Les annales des mines about oil deposits near Qasr-e Shirin. The report by de Morgan was read by Antoine Kitabgi Khan , former General Director of Persian Customs, who lived in Paris as a pensioner. Kitabgi Khan contacted Henry Drummond Wolff , the former British ambassador to Persia, and asked if Wolff could not find someone interested in the exploitation of the Persian oil reserves. Wolff met William Knox D'Arcy in London , who had made his fortune in Australia with a gold mine. D'Arcy was to receive one of the most important oil production concessions that led to the establishment of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company . For his discovery, de Morgan received the Order of the Sun and Lion from Naser al-Din Shah . On March 9, 1906, he received the Order of Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur of the French Legion of Honor .

De Morgan's work as a numismatist remained incomplete as only the first three volumes of his Manuel de Numismatique Orientale were published. In the fifth volume he wanted to report on his excavations in Wasit , during which mints came to light. Clear evidence would have been produced that many mints only existed by name, since the dirhams were struck in wasit. These results had previously been in doubt, although there was known evidence.

Fonts (selection)

  • with Urbain Bouriant , Georges Legrain , Gustave Jéquier , Alexandre Barsanti : Catalog des monuments et inscriptions de l'Égypte antique. Series 1: Haute Égypte.
    • Volume 1: De la frontière de Nubie à Kom Ombos. Holzhausen, Leipzig 1894, ( digitized version );
    • Volumes 2 and 3: Kom Ombos. Holzhausen, Vienna 1895–1909, (digital copies: Volume 2 , Volume 3 ).
  • Fouilles a Dahchour. Mars – June 1894. Holzhausen, Vienna 1895, ( digitized ).
  • Fouilles a Dahchour en 1894–1895. 2 volumes. Holzhausen, Vienna 1903, ( digitized version ).
  • Research on les Origines de l'Égypte. 2 volumes. Leroux, Paris 1896-1897;
    • Volume 1: L'àge de la pierre et les métaux. 1896, ( digitized version );
    • Volume 2: Ethnography préhistorique et tombeau royal de Négadah. 1897, ( digitized version )
  • Manuel de Numismatique Orientale de l'Antiquité et du Moyen Age. Delivery 1–3 = volume 1. Publication achevée sous la direction de KJ Basmadjian. Geuthner, Paris 1923–1936, (unfinished).

literature

  • Edmond Pottier : Jacques de Morgan. In: Syria. Vol. 5, No. 4, 1924, pp. 373-380, ( digitized ).
  • Salomon Reinach : Jacques de Morgan (1856-1924). In: Revue archéologique . Ser. 5, Vol. 20, 1924, pp. 204-222, JSTOR 41031706 .
  • Warren R. Dawson, Eric P. Uphill: Who was who in Egyptology. 3rd, revised edition, by Morris L. Bierbrier. Egypt Exploration Society, London 1995, ISBN 0-85698-125-7 , p. 297.
  • Andrée Jaunay (Ed.): Mémoires de Jacques de Morgan. 1857-1924. Directeur Général des Antiquités Égyptiennes, Délégué général de la Délegation Scientifique en Perse; souvenirs d'un archeology. L'Harmattan et al., Paris 1997, ISBN 2-7384-5798-3 .
  • Andrée Jaunay (ed.): Exploration dans la presqu'île malaise par Jacques de Morgan. 1884. CNRS Éditions, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-271-05966-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rouholla K. Ramazani: The foreign policy of Iran. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville 1966, pp. 70-71.
personal data
SURNAME Morgan, Jacques de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Morgan, Jacques Jean Marie de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French geologist, engineer, Egyptologist, Near Eastern archaeologist and numismatist
DATE OF BIRTH June 3, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Huisseau-sur-Cosson
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 1924
Place of death Marseille