Annie Bélis (born 1951) is a French
archaeologist
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
,
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
,
papyrologist
Papyrology is the study of manuscripts of ancient literature, correspondence, legal archives, etc., preserved on portable media from antiquity, the most common form of which is papyrus, the principal writing material in the ancient civilizations ...
and musician. She is a research director at the French
CNRS
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe.
In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...
, specialized in music from
classical antiquity
Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
,
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...
and
Ancient Rome
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...
.
Career
A former student of the
École normale supérieure
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, Savoi ...
in Sèvres from 1972 to 1975, Bélis passed the
agrégation
In France, the ''agrégation'' () is a competitive examination for civil service in the French public education system. Candidates for the examination, or ''agrégatifs'', become ''agrégés'' once they are admitted to the position of ''professe ...
in
ancient literature
Ancient literature comprises religious and scientific documents, tales, poetry and plays, royal edicts and declarations, and other forms of writing that were recorded on a variety of media, including stone, stone tablets, papyri, palm leaves, and ...
in 1976. Then, Annie Bélis joined the Fondation Thiers from 1979 à 1982. She finished her PhD during her last year at Fondation Thiers and defended it at
Paris-Sorbonne University
Paris-Sorbonne University (also known as Paris IV; french: Université Paris-Sorbonne, Paris IV) was a public research university in Paris, France, active from 1971 to 2017. It was the main inheritor of the Faculty of Humanities of the Universit ...
. The same year, she entered the French School at Athens (1982–1986). In 1986, she published her book ''Aristoxène de Tarente et Aristote ; le Traité d'Harmonique'' for which she received the médaille Georges Perrot from the
Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres () is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France. The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions ( epig ...
. She got her first position at
CNRS
The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe.
In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...
as tenured Research Scientist (''chargée de recherches'') in 1986 and is still with CNRS.
She is currently a member of the AOROC laboratory at
ENS Ulm.
Musical studies
Annie Bélis learned to play the piano with
Yvonne Lefébure
Yvonne Lefébure (29 June 1898, Ermont – 23 January 1986, Paris) was a French pianist and teacher.
Born in Ermont, she studied with Alfred Cortot at the Conservatoire de Paris, taking a ''premier prix'' in piano and numerous other subjects. She ...
, the organ and
counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...
with Arsène Bedois, the flute with Serge Kalisky, and the cello with Jeoffrey Walz.
Research
Annie Bélis produced numerous papers on the music from classical antiquity. They goes from music theory, as her study on the ''Harmonics'' of
Aristoxenus of Tarentum, rebuilding music instruments (Greek
and Roman
Kithara,
lyre
The lyre () is a stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the lute-family of instruments. In organology, a lyre is considered a yoke lute, since it is a lute in which the strings are attached to a yoke ...
,
...) or musical papyri decryption, as Oxyrhynchus papyrus n°3705,
Michigan papyrus n°2958,
or Berlin musical papyrus n°6870
where she established that the papyrus contains a
Paean
A paean () is a song or lyric poem expressing triumph or thanksgiving. In classical antiquity, it is usually performed by a chorus, but some examples seem intended for an individual voice ( monody). It comes from the Greek παιάν (also πα ...
to Apollo due written by
Mesomedes of Crete. In 2004, she published her work
on a papyrus discovered in an unusual way by Laurent Capron, at the time a study engineer at the Institute of Papyrology of the Sorbonne, at the
Louvre Museum
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
. She established the papyrus contains a version of
Medea
In Greek mythology, Medea (; grc, Μήδεια, ''Mēdeia'', perhaps implying "planner / schemer") is the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, a niece of Circe and the granddaughter of the sun god Helios. Medea figures in the myth of Jason an ...
written by
Carcinos. This version is unusual since here Medea pretends she didn't kill her children unlike in the versions due to
Euripides
Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful e ...
or
Seneca
Seneca may refer to:
People and language
* Seneca (name), a list of people with either the given name or surname
* Seneca people, one of the six Iroquois tribes of North America
** Seneca language, the language of the Seneca people
Places Extrat ...
.
Direction of the Ensemble Kérylos
At the beginning of the 1990s, Bélis created the Ensemble Kérylos to recreate music as it was during classical antiquity as faithfully as possible. There were three components to this process. First, deciphering musical papyri from antiquity, which she did as part of her scientific work as a papyrologist. Second, reconstructing the ancient instruments needed to play the music, what she did based on archaeological evidence and with the help of French and Spanish luthiers J.-C. Condi and C. Gonzalez. Finally, performing the scores, the reason why she founded the Ensemble Kérylos. In 1996, under her direction, the Ensemble Kérylos recorded a CD: ''De la pierre au son: Musiques de l'Antiquité grecque et romaine''. In 2016, still under the direction of Annie Bélis, the Ensemble Kérylos produced a new recording, ''D'Euripide aux premiers chrétiens'', a new interpretation of the scores of the previous CD taking into account progress in academic research in the field. This CD has the first recording of the "Roman Kithara" reconstructed by Annie Bélis and Carlos Gonzalez and the "
Paean
A paean () is a song or lyric poem expressing triumph or thanksgiving. In classical antiquity, it is usually performed by a chorus, but some examples seem intended for an individual voice ( monody). It comes from the Greek παιάν (also πα ...
to Apollo" written by
Mesomedes of Crete in its corrected edition.
Bibliography
* Annie Bélis, ''Aristoxène de Tarente et Aristote : le " Traité d'Harmonique "'', Paris, Klincksieck, coll. " Études et commentaires ", , 1986.
* Annie Bélis, ''Les musiciens dans l'Antiquité'', Paris, Hachette-Littératures, coll. " La vie quotidienne ", 1999.
Notes
References
*
articleby Thomas Schlesser on Rue89 dedicated to Annie Bélis, for the exhibition "Alexandre Le Grand" at Musée du Louvre.
*
interviewof Annie Bélis on Europe1 radio station (Les récits d'Europe 1 soir).
*
showdedicated to ancient music on Fréquence protestante radio station (5/01/2014) with A. Bélis and
Michel Petrossian.
External links
*
Webpageof Annie Bélis
Ensemble Kérylos the musical group led by Annie Bélis.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Belis, Annie
Paris-Sorbonne University alumni
French papyrologists
French hellenists
French archaeologists
French women archaeologists
French philologists
Women philologists
20th-century French musicologists
21st-century French musicologists
Women musicologists
Living people
20th-century French women writers
21st-century French women writers
French women historians
1951 births