Professor at the Coll�ge de France, Paris, Egyptologist

• Born in Lyon on August 4, 1927

• Has lived, studied and worked in Paris in the 5th arrondissement since 1932. Since 1939 he is interested in the ancient Egypt.

• After history studies at the Sorbonne (D.E.S. in history), he com-menced his studies of Egyptology in 1943 at the Louvre, thereafter the Department of History, Linguistics and Theology at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Institut Catholique in Paris; Coll�ge de France.

• Research at CNRS in 1948-1963

• Employed at the Institut Fran�ais d'Arch�ologie Orientale (IFAO) in Cairo, 1952-1956

• Director of Studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris, 1964-1991

• Founder of the Centre Wladimir Golenischeff (library, archive)

• Head of Mission Fran�aise des Fouilles de Tanis, 1965-1985

• Director of Biblioth�que Champollion, 1992-1997

• Emeritus professor at the Coll�ge de France since 1998

Starting in 1943, Jean Yoyotte went about a variety of different ways to extend his knowledge of Egyptology in Paris (Ecole du Louvre, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Facult� Catholique, Coll�ge de France),
simultaneously continuing his humanistic schooling at the Lyc�e Henri IV. This was followed by history studies at the Sorbonne, during which he concentrated on Egyptian texts and writings. He was particularly inter-ested in the history of political institutions and society and quickly turned his attention to two areas of research which most Egyptologists, particu-larly in France, had hitherto considered to be of only secondary impor-tance: the history of the �Lower Epoch�, the �decadent� dynasties and the geography of Lower Egypt.

Jean Yoyotte collected documents recording the history of Lower Egypt in conjunction with the small number of researchers concerned with inscrip-tions and objections from this period, i. e. the 21st � 30th dynasty and the Ptolemaic and Roman era. Some articles have refreshed knowledge of the political history of the Libyans and the Saites, filling in a number of gaps in the areas of topography and religious geography.

After conducting personal research at sites in the North (1952-1956), he headed the Mission Fran�aises des Fouilles de Tanis (French excavation team in Tanis) between 1965 and 1985, during which he modernized
excavation techniques with the assistance of the archeologist Philippe Brissaud and revisited the problems raised by these late royal cities ("Tanis, the Gold of the Pharaohs", 1987-1988, Marseilles, Edinburgh, Sydney, Melbourne etc.).

His research on the later phases of Pharaoh art called for constant
collaboration with hellenists and experts on the Ancient Near East as the land of the Pharaohs came into contact with the Phoenicians, the Jews, the Aramaeans, the Persians and the Greeks in the 1st century. He also studied modest artifacts and inscriptions which he found inside and
outside Egypt to explore the cultural relations between Greece and the world of the Pharaohs and to identify links between the natives and various foreign peoples on Egyptian territory. For nearly fifty years he worked on compiling and analysing the Egyptian and Greek texts concerning Heracleion and Thonis, and dedicated five years (1992-97) to seminars on the history of Naucratis (1992-1997), at the Coll�ge de France.


Recent publications:

• Dictionnaire des Pharaons (Dictionary of the Pharaohs), 3rd extended edition, in conjunction with Pascal Cernus, Paris, Edi-tions No�sis, 1998

• Lettres de Tanis (la d�couverte des tr�sors royaux) (Letters from Tanis (the Discovery of the Royal Treasures), Camille Montet-Beaucour, presented and with comments by Camille Montet-Beaucou and Jean Yoyotte, Monaco-Paris, Editions du Rocher, 1998.

• Strabon: Le Voyage en Egypte (Strabon: The Journey to Egypt), Translated by Pascal Charvet. Preface and notes by Jean Yoyotte, conclusion by St�phane Gompertz, Paris, NIL �ditions, 1997.

• Alexandrie: Les quartiers royaux submerg�s (Alexandria - the submerged royal quarters) participation at the associated work of literature on discoveries in the East harbour of Alexandria, Editions Periplus, London, 1998.

• Les rivages d'Alexandrie (The coasts of Alexandria), in Cit�s an-tiques, Dossier of Exceptional Science, October 1999, p. 44-49.

• Alexandrie. La grande bataille de L�arch�ologie (The great battle of Archology) in l�histoire (Dossier Le Myst�re Cl�op�tre), n� 238, decembre 1999, p.50-54.