Assyriology in France from 1945 to 1975

Listen to audio

In the aftermath of the war, the desire for cooperation led to the creation of the Rencontres Assyriologiques Internationales ("RAI") from 1950 onwards. France played aleading role in this undertaking: the organization of these RAIs was entrusted to a "Groupe François Thureau-Dangin", whose presidency was initially assumed by Dhorme, and whose secretariat by Nougayrol. Nine of the twenty-two RAIs held between 1950 and 1975 were based in Paris; the others were held in Leiden (three times), Heidelberg, Geneva, London, Strasbourg, Liège, Chicago, Brussels, Munich, Rome and Gœttingue. The RAI provided the framework for a delicate negotiation concerning Akkadian dictionaries. An Assyrian dictionary had been in preparation in Chicago since 1921 (the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, or CAD); it was relaunched under the impetus of L. Oppenheim in 1952. At the same time, W. von Soden, having inherited B. Meissner's file, was preparing an "Akkadian Dictionary"(Akkadisches Handwörterbuch, abbreviated to AHw). An agreement was reached whereby the AHw would not follow the letters of the alphabet, so that the two enterprises would complement rather than compete with each other. The first two CAD volumes, Ḫ and G, were published in 1956;AHw appeared inalphabetical order from 1959.

Fieldwork resumed more or less rapidly after the war. Iraq remained the poor relation of French oriental archaeology: it was not until 1967 that Parrot returned to Larsa, where he handed over to J. Margueron (1969-1971), before J.-L. Huot took over the enterprise (1974-1989). Apart from Iran, Syria was the main focus of attention and resources, both material and human. C. Schaeffer continued his excavations at Ras Shamra/Ugarit from 1948 to 1970.Most of thetablets discovered during this period were written in Akkadian (rather than Ugaritic); their publication was entrusted to J. Nougayrol, who edited them in four volumes between 1955 and 1970. Parrot resumed the Tell Hariri/Mari excavation in 1951, and carried out his ^21st and final campaign in 1974; from an Assyriological point of view, this period was marked above all by the publication of the tablets discovered before the war. A new collection, the Archives Royales de Mari (ARM), was founded: epigraphists not only published their copies of the originals, but also their transcriptions and translations, sometimes with extensive notes and commentaries. Between 1950 and 1975, no fewer than fifteen volumes were published: to the editions of letters (ARM 1-6, 13 and 14) were added those of administrative texts (ARM 7, 9, 11 and 12) and legal texts (ARM 8), as well as research tools (ARM 15 and 17/1).

After the war, the need for up-to-date dictionaries became urgent, as the one published by Bezold in 1926 had become quite inadequate. France did not play aleading role in this undertaking: thelexicographical works of Fr. Antoine Saubin and the Capuchin Hilaire de Barenton, published between the two world wars, are long forgotten today - and rightly so - and Fossey's thesaurus never saw publication,but France did contribute indirectly to the work of the Oriental Institute, whether in the form of the Akkadian Dictionary (CAD) or the preparatory series for a Sumerian dictionary (MSL). Firstly, through A. Leo Oppenheim.This Viennese Assyriologist left his country in the face of the rise of Nazism and came to Paris in 1938. He collaborated on Fossey's thesaurus, but eventually fled to the USA, where he became one of CAD's editors in 1950, and its chief editor in 1952. It was then that he recruited Erica Reiner, the woman who was to assist him and succeed him in this endeavor. In 1948, the Hungarian-born Erica Reiner had moved to Paris from Budapest, where she had graduated with a degree in linguistics. She specialized in Semitic languages, particularly Akkadian, andgraduated from the EPHE in 1951 under the supervision of Nougayrol. She left Paris to join the dictionary team in Chicago in 1952. Another future CAD collaborator, Robert Biggs, spent 1956/57 in Toulouse. At the Institut Catholique, he attended lectures by Abbé Maurice Baillet, who taught Hebrew and Akkadian. Back in the USA, Biggs decided to study Assyriology at Johns Hopkins University, where he defended a thesis with W. G. Lambert. Finally, in 1963, he obtained a position in Chicago as a research associate at CAD, then as a professor: he was one of the pillars of the company right up to the end. Finally, Miguel Civil, who had trained as a self-taught Assyriologist in Montserrat, came to Paris in 1955, where he decided to study Assyriology at the EPHE with Nougayrol, Labat and Jestin. He moved to Philadelphia in 1958 to work as an assistant to S. N. Kramer, before moving to Chicago in 1963, where he became one of the undisputed masters of Sumerian. Thanks to these four eminent Assyriologists, all of whom either trained in France or spent time there, it can be said that French Assyriology indirectly contributed to the lexicographical work of the Oriental Institute of Chicago.