Pierre Demargne

Pierre Demargne (full name Pierre Marie Joseph Gabriel Demargne , born February 8, 1903 in Aix-en-Provence , † December 13, 2000 in Paris ) was a French classical archaeologist .

Life

Pierre Demargne studied from 1922 classical archeology at the École normal supérieure in Paris . In 1926 he went to the École française d'Athènes , where he deepened his studies and took part in excavations. He took part in the excavation of the Minoan palace in Malia in Crete and described numerous finds, including the gold jewelry known as the " Bees of Malia " and exhibited in the Archaeological Museum in Heraklion . In 1933 Demargne returned to France and became Professor of Classical Archeology at the University of Grenoble . In 1937 he moved to theUniversity of Strasbourg . When the Second World War broke out in 1939, he volunteered and was taken prisoner of war by Germany in 1940, from which he was released to Strasbourg in 1945. In 1950 he moved to a chair at the Sorbonne in Paris. In the same year he began excavations in the Lycian city ​​of Xanthos in Turkey, initially as a guest of the Institut français d'Istanbul and the Institut français d'études anatoliennes . In 1951 he founded an archaeological mission in Xanthos together with Henri Metzger and Pierre Coupel ; Together they carried out excavations for ten years with financial support from the French Foreign Ministry . Demargne presented the results in 1963 at the 8th International Archaeological Congress, which he himself organized in Paris. From 1962 to 1969 he headed the Institute for Art History and Archeology at the Sorbonne. In 1971 he retired .

Demargne's research focus since his first stay in Greece was the Greek art of the Bronze Age . From 1946 onwards, from numerous individual investigations, he developed the thesis that there was a connection between the various regional styles of Bronze Age Greek art that reveals a common development. He also demonstrated the continuity of Greek art from the Bronze Age to the Archaic and included oriental influences on Aegean art. He presented these findings in the monograph Naissance de l'art grec (1964), which has been translated into several languages ​​and is considered a standard work. Other important publications by Demargnes were his contributions to the excavation reports of Xanthos ( Fouilles de Xanthos ), which he edited in collaboration with other researchers from 1958 to 1989.

Demargne received rich recognition both at home and abroad for his scientific achievements. He was a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres since 1969 , as its president from 1980. He was also a member of the Academy of Athens , the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz , the German and Austrian Archaeological Institute , the Archaeological Institute of America and the Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia .

Fonts (selection)

• La crète dédalique. Études sur les origines d'une renaissance . Paris 1947 (= dissertation)
• Les piliers funéraires (= Fouilles de Xanthos vol. 1). Paris 1958
• Naissance de l'art grec . Paris 1964
  • English translation: The Birth of Greek Art . New York 1964 (American edition); Aegean Art. The Origins of Greek Art . London 1964 (British edition)
  • German translation: The birth of Greek art ( universe of art ). Beck, Munich 1965. 2nd edition with a supplement in 1975. Special edition 1977
• with Pierre Coupel: Le monument des Néréides. L'architecture (= Fouilles de Xanthos vol. 3). Klincksieck, Paris 1969
• Tombes-maisons, tombes et sarcophages (= Fouilles de Xanthos vol. 5). Klincksieck, Paris 1974
• with William AP Childs, Pierre Coupel, Anca Lemaire: Le monument des Néréides. Le décor sculpté (= Fouilles de Xanthos vol. 8). Klincksieck, Paris 1989

literature

• Bibliography de Pierre Demargne . In: Revue archéologique 1976 (= Études sur les relations entre Grèce et Anatolie offertes à Pierre Demargne ), pp. 3–8
• Christian Le Roy: Pierre Demargne, Spécialiste de la Crète et de l'Anatolie antiques . In: Le Monde , December 20, 2000
• Christian Le Roy: Pierre Demargne In: Revue archéologique 2000, pp. 455–457.
• Philippe Contamine: Allocution à l'occasion du décès de M. Pierre Demargne. In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 2000, pp. 1521–1523 ( digitized version )

Web links

• Biography in the Dictionary of Art Historians
• Biography at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (French)