Pierre Merlat

Pierre Merlat (born August 20, 1911 in Albertville , † October 14, 1959 in Rennes ) was a French ancient historian .

Merlat studied history and archeology until 1935 . From 1937 to 1938 he worked as a curator at the Archaeological Museum of Antakya (the ancient Antioch on the Orontes ), which was then under French administration, where he also dealt with ancient epigraphy and topography . There he laid the foundation for his doctoral thesis on the soldier god Iupiter Dolichenus , which he completed in 1948 and which only appeared in print after his death. In connection with these studies he also published several essays from 1946 to 1954, as well as a catalog of the inscriptions and pictorial monuments of the cult of Iupiter Dolichenus (1951).

During the Second World War , Merlat served as a lieutenant in the French army from 1939 to 1945; at the time of the German occupation of France, he supported the Resistance . In the last phase of the war he was wounded several times. On August 26, 1945 Charles de Gaulle appointed him Knight of the Legion of Honor .

In 1948 Merlat became Professor of Ancient History at the University of Rennes . At the same time, he was the curator of the archaeological finds and sites around Rennes. So Merlat came to his second research focus, the Celtic history. As an expert in this field, he wrote several articles for the Real Encyclopedia of Classical Antiquities (RE), including an extensive one on the Venetians , which appeared in 1955 and was reprinted in 1981.

From 1957 until his untimely death in 1959, Merlat served as dean of the philosophy faculty at Rennes University.

Fonts (selection)

• Répertoire des inscriptions et monuments figurès du culte de Jupiter Dolichenus . Paris 1951
• Veneti. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume VIII A, 1, Stuttgart 1955, Col. 705-783.
• Jupiter Dolichenus. Essai d'interprétation et de synthèse . Paris 1960

literature

• Guy Souillet: Pierre Merlat (1911-1959) . In: Onoma . Volume 8 (1958-1959), p. 474.
• Jean Bousquet: Pierre Merlat (1911-1959) . In: Gallia . Volume 18 (1960), pp. 191–193 (with picture and list of publications; online ).
• René Marache, Paul Henry, Louis Sauzin, André Meynier, Louis Pape: Discours prononcé aux obsèques de Mr Pierre Merlat, doyen de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences humaines de Rennes, on October 19, 1959 . In: Annales de Bretagne . Volume 67 (1960), pp. 4-32 (with picture and list of publications).