Canon Étienne Drioton is one of the leading figures in French Egyptology of the 20th century. After several years of teaching and research at the Institut Catholique de Paris and the École du Louvre, he was appointed Director General of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities and the Cairo Museum in 1936, a position he held for almost sixteen years. In 1957, he was appointed Professor at the Collège de France, where he held the Chairin Egyptian Philology and Archaeology until his retirement in 1960.
The items on display provide an insight into the publications and various types of working documents produced by the Egyptologist. The Drioton fonds at the BNUS, acquired in 1961, contains his personal library (5 000 volumes) as well as part of his archives, in particular his notes and manuscript archives on his favourite subjects, such as cryptography, ancient Egyptian theater and religion, and Coptic studies.
In addition, through a series of snapshots, this exhibition offers visitors a glimpse of the impressive photographic collection Drioton was able to create throughout his career. The images on display mainly concern the Médamoud and Tôd excavations in Upper Egypt, in which Étienne Drioton took part as an epigraphist between 1925 and 1936. The original photographs (on glass plates and film negatives), most of which are held by the Musée Josèphe-Jacquiot in Montgeron, are currently being processed by the Collège de France's library of Egyptology, with a view to their online publication on Salamandre.
