Louis Finot (archaeologist)

Louis Finot (1864 in Bar-sur-Aube – 1935 in Toulon) was a French archaeologist and researcher, specialising in the cultures of Southeast Asia. He became director of the Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, and his contribution to the study of Khmer history, architecture and epigraphy is widely recognised.

A bachelor of law and letters, Finot was admitted to the École Nationale des Chartes in 1886. He left it two years later with the title of palaeographer. He worked initially as a trainee then as an assistant librarian with the French National Library and undertook studies of Sanskrit. In 1898, he was named director of the archaeological mission in Indochina, which would become in 1900 the Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO). In 1933 he became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.