Jean Yoyotte (4 August 1927 – 1 July 2009) was a French Egyptologist, Professor of

Egyptology Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...

at the

Collège de France The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment (''grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris ne ...

and director of research at the

École pratique des hautes études The École pratique des hautes études (), abbreviated EPHE, is a Grand Établissement in Paris, France. It is highly selective, and counted among France's most prestigious research and higher education institutions. It is a constituent college o ...

(EPHE).Nécrologie de M. Jean Yoyotte (1927-2009) par Christiane Zivie-Coche
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Biography

Born in 1927 at

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 ...

, he attended the

Lycée Henri-IV The Lycée Henri-IV is a public secondary school located in Paris. Along with the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, it is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious and demanding sixth-form colleges (''lycées'') in France. The school educates more than ...

where he befriended

Serge Sauneron Serge Sauneron (3 January 1927 – 3 June 1976) was a French Egyptologist. He was Director of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale The Institut français d'archéologie orientale (or IFAO), also known as the French Institute for Orient ...

who later became director of the

Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale The Institut français d'archéologie orientale (or IFAO), also known as the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology in Cairo, is a French research institute based in Cairo, Egypt, dedicated to the study of the archaeology, history and language ...

(IFAO). Later he attended a course at the

École du Louvre The École du Louvre is an institution of higher education and grande école located in the Aile de Flore of the Louvre Palace in Paris, France. It is dedicated to the study of archaeology, art history, anthropology and epigraphy. Admission is ...

under the supervision of Jacques Vandier, and later studied at the EPHE. Around 1949, he conducted researches at the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique 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 Basic research, also called pure research o ...

, and in the interval 1952–56 he was in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

at the IFAO. In 1964 he became director of research for

ancient Egyptian religion Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals that formed an integral part of ancient Egyptian culture. It centered on the Egyptians' interactions with many deities believed to be present in, and in control ...

at the EPHE, where he was a student a few decades earlier. He participated with other colleagues committed to the left (

Elena Cassin Elena Cassin, (1909 - June 2011), was an Italian-born French Assyriologist. Biography Elena Cassin studied the history of religions at the University of Rome and obtained her doctorate in 1933. She then went to Paris and attended Charles Fossey' ...

Maxime Rodinson Maxime Rodinson (26 January 1915 – 23 May 2004) was a French Marxist historian, sociologist and orientalist. He was the son of a Russian-Polish clothing trader and his wife, who both were murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp. After study ...

Maurice Godelier Maurice Godelier (born February 28, 1934) is a French anthropologist who works as a Director of Studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. He is one of the most influential French anthropologists and is best known as one o ...

, Charles Malamoud,

André-Georges Haudricourt André-Georges Haudricourt (; 17 January 1911 – 20 August 1996) was a French botanist, anthropologist and linguist. Biography He grew up on his parents' farm, in a remote area of Picardy. From his early childhood, he was curious about technolo ...

Jean-Paul Brisson Jean-Paul Brisson (11 September 1918 – 25 June 2006) was a French honorary professor of Latin language and civilisation at the Paris West University Nanterre La Défense. He devoted himself particularly to the social problems of antiquity, North ...

Jean Bottéro Jean Bottéro (30 August 1914 – 15 December 2007) was a French historian born in Vallauris. He was a major Assyriologist and a renowned expert on the Ancient Near East. He died in Gif-sur-Yvette. Biography He participated with other colleagues c ...

) in a

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

think tank organised by

Jean-Pierre Vernant Jean-Pierre Vernant (; January 4, 1914 – January 9, 2007) was a French historian and anthropologist, specialist in ancient Greece. Influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Vernant developed a structuralist approach to Greek myth, tragedy, and ...

. This group took on an institutional form with the creation, in 1964, of the ''Centre des recherches comparées sur les sociétés anciennes'', which later became the ''Centre

Louis Gernet Louis Gernet (28 November 1882 – 29 January 1962) was a French philologist and sociologist. Life A student at the École Normale Supérieure (class of 1902), he received a licentiate in law and agrégation in grammar. In 1917, supported by ...

'', focusing more on the study 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 ...

. From 1965–85 he was director of the French excavations at

Tanis Tanis ( grc, Τάνις or Τανέως ) or San al-Hagar ( ar, صان الحجر, Ṣān al-Ḥaǧar; egy, ḏꜥn.t ; ; cop, ϫⲁⲛⲓ or or ) is the Greek name for ancient Egyptian ''ḏꜥn.t'', an important archaeological site in the ...

in the eastern

Nile Delta The Nile Delta ( ar, دلتا النيل, or simply , is the delta formed in Lower Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Po ...

; he organized a major exhibition of the results of these excavations in 1987 at the

Grand Palais The Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées ( en, Great Palace of the Elysian Fields), commonly known as the Grand Palais (English: Great Palace), is a historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arro ...

in Paris. In 1992 he was appointed to the chair of Egyptology at the Collège de France, a position which he held until 2000.

Death

Jean Yoyotte died in Paris on 1 July 2009, aged 81.

Significant works

*With Georges Posener and

: ''Dictionnaire de la civilisation égyptienne'' (1959) *With Serge Sauneron: ''La naissance du monde selon l'Égypte ancienne'', In ''La Naissance du Monde'', Paris (1959) *''Les trésors des pharaons'', (1968) *''Tanis l'or des pharaons'' (1987) *With Pascal Vernus: ''Dictionnaire des pharaons'' (1992) & ''Bestiaire des Pharaons'' (2001)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yoyotte, Jean 1927 births 2009 deaths 20th-century French archaeologists 21st-century French archaeologists French Egyptologists Archaeologists from Lyon Collège de France faculty École pratique des hautes études faculty Members of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale Tanis Lycée Henri-IV alumni École du Louvre alumni