Raymond Bloch

Raymond Bloch (born May 4, 1914 in Paris ; † August 12, 1997 ibid) was a French ancient historian, classical philologist and Etruscanologist .

Life

Bloch was the son of the novelist Oscar Bloch . After graduating from the Lycée Louis-le-Grand , he studied from 1934 at the École normal supérieure and graduated from the Agrégation in 1938 . His teachers included the historians Jérôme Carcopino and André Piganiol , the linguist Alfred Ernout , the religious historian Georges Dumézil and the philologist Jean Bayet . In 1940 he proved the partly Etruscan origin of the Sibylline books and published on the Ara Pietatis Augustae . He was nominated for the École française de Rome , but his career was interrupted by the Second World War. He was a prisoner of war in Germany until 1945, including in Lübeck, where he made the acquaintance of Fernand Braudel . While in captivity, he wrote a book on the origins of Rome that was published after the war. After his liberation he was able to go to the École française in Rome from 1945 to 1947 and was then involved in Etruscan excavations, first on behalf of the head of the École française Albert Grenier in Bolsena (where he was named after the large central Etruscan temple believed to be here des Voltumna ) and 1960 to 1965 with Guido Mansuelli in Casalecchio di Reno . From 1939 until his retirement in 1982 he was Directeur d'Études at the École pratique des hautes études (4th section). There he regularly had a weekly seminar on Etruscans and early Roman history. Almost all of France's Etruscologists of his time were among his students.

With regard to the origins of the Etruscans, Bloch took a middle position between the followers of the Herodotus thesis of origin in the east and the autochthonous origin ( Massimo Pallottino ). He tended to come from the East, but their culture emerged from the merging of different influences within the Italian Villanova culture . Another focus of his research alongside the Etruscans was the history of ancient religions.

In 1982 Bloch became a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres . He was a foreign member and secretary of the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Etruschi ed Italici in Florence, a member of the German Archaeological Institute , the Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia in Rome and the Istituto degli Studi Romani.

Fonts (selection)

• Recherches archéologiques en territoire volsinien, de la protohistoire à la civilization étrusque , Paris 1972 (further development from his dissertation, excavations around Bolsena, Latin Volsinii nova)
• Les Étrusques , Que sais-je?, PUF, 1954, 1963, Review by Marcel Renard, L´antiquité classique 1955 ,
• Le mystère étrusque , Club francais du livre 1956, review by Fred Householder, The Classical Journal 1960, New York: Praeger 1958 edition
• L'art et la civilization étrusques , Paris: Plon 1955.
  • German Die Etrusker , Heyne Paperback 1977 (Archaeologia mundi)
• L'Art des Étrusques , Paris: Braun, 1956
  • English: The Art of the Etruscans , Kohlhammer 1966
• Les Origines de Rome , PUF, Que-sais-je ?, 1946, 1959
• Tite-Live et les premiers siècles de Rome , Paris: Les belles lettres 1965.
• Les Prodiges dans l'Antiquité classique , Paris 1963,
• La divination dans l'antiquité , PUF 1984
• La divination, essai sur l'avenir et son imaginaire , 1991
• with Alain Hus Les conquetes de l'archeologie , Hachette 1968
• with other research on les religions de l'antiquité classique , Geneva, Paris 1976, 1980

Bloch published books 7 and 8 of the history of Titus Livius in Edition Guillaume Budé (and commentaries on the other volumes in new editions). He was editor of the series Les grandes civilizations at Arthaud.

literature

• Dominique Briquel: Raymond Bloch (1914-1997). In: École pratique des hautes études. 4e section, sciences historiques et philologiques. Livret 1996-1997, pp. 33-35 ( full text ).
• Dominique Briquel, Charles Guittard: Raymond Bloch (1914-1997). In: Revue des études latines 75, 1997, pp. 20-22.

Web links

• Encyclopaedia Universalis
• Literature by and about Raymond Bloch in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)

Individual evidence

1. ^ In Mélanges A. Ernout , Paris, 1940