Fernand Courby
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Fernand Henri Fabien Courby (19 January 1878 – 6 March 1932) was a French archaeologist and
Hellenist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient ...
, a specialist 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 ...
, a member of the
French School at Athens The French School at Athens (french: École française d’Athènes, EfA; el, Γαλλική Σχολή Αθηνών ''Gallikí Scholí Athinón'') is one of the seventeen foreign archaeological institutes operating in Athens, Greece. History ...
(class 1905), and professor at the Faculté des lettres of the
University of Lyon The University of Lyon (french: Université de Lyon), located in Lyon and Saint-Étienne, France, is a center for higher education and research comprising 11 members and 24 associated institutions. The three main universities in this center are: ...
.


Biography

Born into a modest family of Valence in the
Drôme Drôme (; Occitan: ''Droma''; Arpitan: ''Drôma'') is the southernmost department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. Named after the river Drôme, it had a population of 516,762 as of 2019.
department where his father ran a machine shop, Fernand Courby experienced from childhood the taste to translate through drawing the expression of his thought. A brilliant student in high school in Valence, then a scholarship holder for license and aggregation at the Faculty of Arts of Lyon, he was formed by the teaching of Henri Lechat
Maurice Holleaux Maurice Holleaux (15 April 1861 – 21 September 1932) was a 19th–20th-century French historian, archaeologist and epigrapher, a specialist of Ancient Greece. Biography Années de formation Admitted in the École normale supérieure in 18 ...
and Philippe-Ernest Legrand and chosen to be a member of the
French School at Athens The French School at Athens (french: École française d’Athènes, EfA; el, Γαλλική Σχολή Αθηνών ''Gallikí Scholí Athinón'') is one of the seventeen foreign archaeological institutes operating in Athens, Greece. History ...
in 1905. After a stay at the Académie de France in Rome (Villa Medici), he joined the great archaeological sites of
Delos The island of Delos (; el, Δήλος ; Attic: , Doric: ), near Mykonos, near the centre of the Cyclades archipelago, is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. The excavations in the island are ...
and
Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracle ...
under the leadership of Maurice Holleaux. An archaeologist coupled with a designer and very expert in architecture, he realized the then so rare type of archaeologist-architect that was missing in the French School at Athens, and contributed to a capital change in French methods in archeology. At Delos, he became interested in 1906 in the proto-history of the sanctuary, unearthed the ''Portico Antigone'' with one of the tombs of the Hyperborean Virgins (the Theke), and discovered the remains of a Minoan and Mycenaean Delos in the sanctuary of Apollo and Artemis. With
Charles Picard Charles Picard (7 June 1883 – 15 December 1965) was a prominent Classical archaeologist and historian of ancient Greek art. He is best known for his multi-volume, monumental survey, ''Manuel d'archéologie grecque: La sculpture.'' Volume I (7- ...
, he prepared the enhancement of the excavations of the city and the Temple of Zeus by a mission to Stratos (Acarnania). At Delphi, his studies on the tholos of the Sicycone Treasury, the east pediment of the archaic temple on the nearby monument of the opisthodomos, and especially the terrace of the temple renewed the knowledge of Delphic monuments. Mobilized in 1914 and assigned in 1915 to the 176th Infantry Regiment, it was in the uniform of an adjutant (and under the Turkish balls) that he participated in the development of Macedonia excavations, especially the necropolis of Elaeusin in Thrace, unearthed during work entrenchment in the Dardanelles in early June 1915. He cumulated these archaeological activities with the function of officer-interpreter by the 2nd office of the General Staff of the Armies of the East in Salonika. His role in the development of the victorious offensive which forced Bulgaria to ask for an armistice September 29, 1918 earned him the Greek Medal of Military Merit and the French
Croix de Guerre The ''Croix de Guerre'' (, ''Cross of War'') is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was first awa ...
with citation to the order of the Eastern Army. As soon as 1919, resuming the publication of the monuments of the terrace of the temple of Apollo at Delphi interrupted by the war, he undertook a comprehensive study of the altar of Pythian Apollo. It was in Delos that Fernand Courby started his study o
''Les vases grecs à reliefs''
(from prehistoric to Roman times), which he made the subject of his doctoral thesis published in 1922. This book of reference on the
pottery of ancient Greece Ancient Greek pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it (over 100,000 painted vases are recorded in the Corpus vasorum antiquorum), it has exe ...
earned him the medal of the
Institut de France The (; ) is a French learned society, grouping five , including the Académie Française. It was established in 1795 at the direction of the National Convention. Located on the Quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the institute m ...
in 1926. Appointed a professor of Greek philology and epigraphy at the University of Lyon in 1922, Fernand Courby founded in 1923 the ''Institut d'épigraphie grecque'', which in 1961 took the name ''Institut Fernand Courby'' (a laboratory of 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 ...
since 1967). In 1931, Fernand Courby published his last book on Delos, ''Les temples d'Apollon''.Courby, Fernand. Exploration Archéologique de Délos XII: ''Les temples d'Apollon''. Paris: De Boccard (1931) (Ambalietos prize 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 ...
).
Surgery was performed too late for a mastoiditis and he died of meningitis March 6, 1932, aged 54. At the time of his death he was preparing a study on Greek house for the series ''La vie publique et privée des anciens Grecs'' (
Collection Budé The ''Collection Budé'', or the ''Collection des Universités de France'', is an editorial collection comprising the Greek and Latin classics up to the middle of the 6th century (before Emperor Justinian). It is published by Les Belles Lettres, ...
). He was twice holder of the Grand silver medal of the
Société centrale des architectes français Lactalis is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier SA. Lactalis is the largest dairy products group in the world, and is the sec ...
. Left a widower in 1914 with two young daughters, Anne (born in 1912) and Irène (born 1914), Fernand Courby remarried in 1922 with the daughter of the Hellenist Fernand Allègre, with whom he had a daughter, Françoise (born 1924).


References


External links


Collection des estampages de l'Institut Fernand-Courby



History and Origins of the Antique World : Institut Fernand Courby - Institute of Christian Origins
on Université Lyon 2 {{DEFAULTSORT:Courby, Fernand French archaeologists French hellenists French epigraphers Members of the French School at Athens 1878 births People from Drôme 1932 deaths