Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt
Christiane Desroches Noble Court (born 17 November 1913 in Paris, † 23 June, 2011 Sézanne, Marne ) was a French Egyptologist. She is the author of numerous books on Egyptian art and history and is also known for her role in the maintenance of Nubian temples from flooding caused by the Aswan Dam.
Life
Noble Court was born as Christiane Desroches, 1913 in Paris. In 1922, she was fascinated by Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. It was promoted by Father Etienne Drioton and worked at the Egyptian Antiquities Department at the Louvre. She was the first female member of the Institut français d' archéologie orientale ( IFAO ) and commenced in 1938 as the first woman to an archaeological dig. During the Second World War, she joined the resistance and hidden Egyptian treasures of the Louvre in free France.
The construction of the new dam resulted in Noble Courts greatest achievement: the preservation of the ancient Nubian temple before the flood. The construction of the first dam was completed in 1902, but was in 1912 and 1934 referred with a capacity of one billion cubic meters as inadequate. The size of the dam was no longer in a position to meet the needs of the ever-growing Egyptian population. Thus, the government of Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954 decided to build a new dam with a capacity of 157 billion cubic meters, the have a length of 500 kilometers and would extend into the Sudan. The monuments of ancient Nubia would have been flooded and have been lost forever if the project would proceed as planned.
Immediately asked the UNESCO Noble Court, at that time curator of Egyptian antiquities at the Louvre, to take stock of all endangered historic sites. They then undertook the daunting task of finding donors for the financing of the bailout. On March 8, 1960 Noble Court demanded along with Sarwat Okasha, the Egyptian Minister of Culture, international support. It was not just to move more than fourteen temples, but also to finance urgent excavations on the sites, which would soon be in the water. At the height of the Cold War contributed fifty countries in agent to obtain the monuments as the heritage of all humanity. Finally took the bailout, including the transport and reconstruction of the temple, twenty years.
The maintenance of Nubian monuments had unexpected consequences. The first was to improve the Franco- Egyptian relations after the Suez crisis of 1956., Which in turn led to the implementation of a Tutankhamun exhibition at the Louvre in 1967, which attracted a record number of visitors, followed by the exhibitions of Ramses II and Amenhotep III 1976. 1993rd In recognition of the French contributions for the maintenance of Nubian temples, the government of Anwar Sadat donated to the Louvre a bust of Amenhotep IV ( Akhenaten ). 1975 Noble Court received the prestigious Gold Medal of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS ). In January 2008, she was awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour.
Awards
Publications
- Post: Max Hirmer and Eberhard Otto: Egyptian Art (2 volumes), as dtv paperback after the 4th revised edition of Hirmer Verlag, Munich 1971, ISBN 3-423-04092-0 and ISBN 3-423-04093-9.