Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet (born 1956) is a French historian and research director. She is a doctor in history, research director at the

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 ...

, at the Orient and Mediterranean laboratory and a member of 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 ...

. In 2016, she was awarded the Irène-Joliot-Curie Prize for Woman Scientist of the Year.

Biography

Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet, was born on 22 August 1956 in

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

, France. From 1975-1980, she attended the Ecole Normale Supérieure for young girls, and earned her

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 history in 1978. She completed her doctorate from the University Panthéon-Sorbonne with a thesis on relations between cities of the

Phoenicia Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their histor ...

n Coast and the

Kingdoms of Israel and Judah The history of ancient Israel and Judah begins in the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. "Israel" as a people or tribal confederation (see Israelites) appears for the first time in the Merneptah Stele, an inscripti ...

(1988) and qualified to direct research from the François-Rabelais University in

Tours Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 ...

(1999).

Career

She was a resident at the

National Library of France National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

, Oriental Manuscripts Division (1981-1985), where she notably worked on the first volume of the catalog of

Syriac Syriac may refer to: *Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic *Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region * Syriac alphabet ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Neo-Aramaic languages a ...

manuscripts. In 2020, she became director of research at the CNRS (“Semitic Worlds” component) and deputy director of the “Orient and Mediterranean” laboratory (UMR 8167). In 2016 she received the Irène-Joliot-Curie Prize for Woman Scientist of the Year for 'her research on the history of the Levant in the 1st millennium BC and the culture of Christians in the Near East, particularly through written objects, manuscripts and inscriptions." She was elected a member of the French Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres on 21 May 2021.

Memberships

At CNRS, Briquel-Chatonnet has served as a member of the CNRS national committee, section 32, (2004-2008) and of the scientific council of the Institute of Human and Social Sciences of the CNRS (2010-2014). She is also on the school's scientific council for Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (2018-2021). Briquel-Chatonnet is founder and President of the Society for Syriac Studies (Paris); member of the Asian Society (Paris), member of the Society for the Study of the Prehistoric, member of Ancient and Medieval Maghreb (Paris), member of the Society of Professors of Ancient History.

Personal life

Briquel-Chatonnet married

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 ...

and etruscologist

Dominique Briquel Dominique Briquel (21 January 1946, Nancy) is a French scholar, a specialist of archaeology and etruscology. Briquel studied at the École Normale Supérieure from 1964 to 1969 and was a member of the École française de Rome from 1971 to 1974. ...

Distinctions

* Prize from the Thiers Foundation for the publication of her doctoral thesis, 1988 * CNRS bronze medal, 1993 * Irène-Joliot-Curie Prize for Woman Scientist of the Year, 2016 * Member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres since 2021 * Knight of the National Order of Merit * Knight of the Academic Palms

Selected publications

* Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet, ''The Syriac'' World , Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2017, 272 p. ( ) * ''Relations between the cities of the Phoenician coast and the kingdoms of Israel and Judah'', Studia Phœnicia 12, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 46, Louvain, Librairie orientaliste Peeters, 1992, 446 p. * ''Syriac Manuscripts''. National Library of France (manuscripts entered since 1911, no.356-435). Aix-en-Provence, Méjanes Library. Lyon, Municipal Library. Strasbourg, National and University Library. Catalog, Paris, National Library of France, 1997, 264 p. * with Éric Gubel, ''Les Phéniciens : Aux origines du Liban'', Gallimard, collection «

Découvertes Gallimard (, ; in United Kingdom: ''New Horizons'', in United States: ''Abrams Discoveries'') is an editorial collection of illustrated monographic books published by the Éditions Gallimard in pocket format. The books are concise introductions to pa ...

/ Archéologie » (nº 358), 1998, 160 p. * with Pierre Bordreuil, ''Le Temps de la Bible'', Paris, Gallimard, coll. “History Folio”, 2003, 461 p. * Editing of the collective work ''La Bible'', Paris, Jules Tallandier, 2003, 345 p. * ''The Arameans and the first Arabs'', Aix-en-Provence, Édisud, 2005 (Encyclopedia of the Mediterranean) * ''Christian Arabia'' (with Christian Julien Robin), Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2017

References

External links

RadioFrance Interview: The Arameans, with Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet
(in French)
RadioFrance Interview: The Language of Paradise, with Françoise Briquel-Chatonnet
(in French) {{DEFAULTSORT:Briquel-Chatonnet, Francoise Living people 1956 births Scientists from Lyon Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research French National Centre for Scientific Research scientists 21st-century French women scientists 20th-century French women scientists 20th-century French scientists 21st-century French scientists Phoenician-Punic studies