Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres

The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres ( Academy of Inscriptions and Literature ), formerly Académie royale des Inscriptions et Médailles and Royal Academy of Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, also called la petite Académie, was originally a French company for the promotion of French epigraphy. Today, the Academy is a learned society for scientific research (see Academy ), which deals with language, history, culture and art throughout the ancient world from its beginnings to today.

1663 were by Jean -Baptiste Colbert, four members of the Académie française specifically assigned to conduct the drafting and editing of inscriptions on public monuments. This commission, which was also called la petite Académie 1701 was named the Académie royale des Inscriptions et Médailles as well as a set of regulations, which fixed the number of members to 40 and divided the sphere of their activity in the sections of history, archeology and philology. Due to a decree of the French regent, the name was changed to the Académie royale des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres on January 4, 1716.

In addition to the Académie française, the Académie des Sciences, the Académie des Beaux-Arts and the Académie des sciences morales et politiques the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres is one of the five parts of the Institut de France.

Jean -François Champollion presented his findings in the study of hieroglyphs to a wider audience in a lecture to the inscription Academy for the first time.

Today, the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres from 55 French members and 40 foreign associates members. In addition, 50 French and foreign corresponding members. The members are elected for life. If a seat vacant, make the members of the Académie proposals and select a new member of a secret ballot. This is true both for the ordinary French as well as for the associated foreign members.

The seats are divided into four equal groups:

• Orientalists: from Egypt through the Levant and Anatolia, the Middle to the Far East, from the ancient civilizations to the modern India and China
• Classical scholars of antiquity: ancient historians, classical philologists, Classical archaeologists, numismatists, scholars of
• Medievalists, temporally extended, including the Slavic and Byzantine area until the 17th century
• Mixed group: legal historians, linguists, historians of religion, pre-historians, philosophers

The publications of the Academy are plentiful, so more than 20 periodicals in the year are published alone.

The Academy gives more than thirty different prices. These include the Prix du Budget, Prix Gobert, Bordin Prix, Prix Saintour, as well as the Prix Stanislas Julien for major publications in Sinology.

Members

Secrétaire perpétuel

The Academy is led by perpétuel Secrétaire:

• Louis Dupuy (1772-1782)
• Joseph Dacier (1782-1793; 1803-1833)
• Antoine- Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (1833-1838)
• Pierre -Claude Daunou (1838-1840)
• Charles Athanase Walckenaer (1840-1852)
• Eugène Burnouf (1852 )
• Joseph Naudet (1852-1860)
• Joseph Guigniaut (1860-1873)
• Henri Wallon (1873-1904)
• Georges Perrot (1904-1914)
• Gaston Maspero (1914-1916)
• René Cagnat (1916-1937)
• René Dussaud (1937-1948)
• Alfred Merlin (1948-1964)
• Georges Tessier (1964-1968)
• André Dupont-Sommer (1968-1983)
• Jean Leclant (1983-2011)
• Michel Zink ( since 2011 )

Website of the Académie

• Homepage (in French )
• History (English )