Publication of the opening lecture by Prof. Jean-Luc Fournet

Jean-Luc Fournet

These shreds, guardians of human memory. Papyri and culture in Late Antiquity

" Taking off in the ^19thcentury  ^{with the discovery of thousands of papyri in Egypt, papyrology is the study of Greek and Latin texts written on a transportable medium (papyrus, pottery shards, wooden tablets or parchment). While inscriptions and literary sources can present a normative, idealized or sometimes distorted image of individuals, papyri - fragmentary though they may be - give us an insight into their daily lives, making possible an archaeology of their cultural practices. Attempting to decipher "these shreds, guardians of the memory of men", to paraphrase Leonardo da Vinci, is the challenge of the papyrologist, who thus constantly renews our knowledge of the past.} "

Fournet J-L., Ces lambeaux, gardiens de la mémoire des hommes. Papyrus et culture de l'Antiquité tardive, Paris, Collège de France/Fayard, coll. " Leçons inaugurales du Collège de France ",^no 260, juin 2016, 88 p.

ISBN : 978-2-213-70127-1
Price : 12 €
Publication : June 15, 2016

Jean-Luc Fournet is a Byzantine papyrologist. He was a member of the Institut français d'archéologie orientale in Cairo, a research fellow at the CNRS, then director of studies in Greek papyrology at the École pratique des hautes études. In March 2015, he was appointed Professor of Written Culture in Late Antiquity and Byzantine Papyrology at the Collège de France.