Jacques de Morgan
Jacques Jean Marie de Morgan ( born June 3, 1857 in Huisseau -sur -Cosson, France, † June 12, 1924 in Marseille) was an engineer, a geologist, an Egyptologist, Near Eastern archaeologist and numismatist.
Life
Jacques de Morgan studied at the École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris in 1882 and left this to search in England, Europe, the East Indies and Malacca to gold. He conducted scientific missions in the Caucasus ( 1886-1889 ) and Persia ( 1889-1891 ).
From 1892 to 1897 de Morgan was Director General of the Service of Antiquities d' Egypte in Cairo. He undertook excavations at Dahshur, where he discovered the tombs of the princesses Mereret and Chnumit whose exceptional jewelry is on display in the Cairo Museum today. Furthermore, discovered de Morgan 1893, the Mastaba of Mereruka at Saqqara, laid in 1893 the temple of Kom Ombo free, in 1897, the grave of Queen Neithhotep in Naqada and led the first scientific expedition to the Sinai.
He then worked from 1897 to 1907 in Susa, Persia. There, the Naram -Sin stele was found under his direction, which is now in the Louvre. His staff Gustave Jéquier and Jean -Vincent Scheil found in December 1901 and January 1902 three fragments of diorite, which composed a stele of over two meters in height and almost 50 cm in diameter were. They had the Code of Hammurabi found one of the oldest collections of laws in the Old World.
In 1892, de Morgan published a report on his travels to Persia. In 1891 he had visited the excavation works of Marcel Dieulafoy and Jane near Qasr -e Shirin and reported in the journal Les annales des mines over oil deposits near Qasr -e Shirin. The report by Morgan de las Antoine Kitabgi Khan, former Director General of the Persian customs matters, who lived as a pensioner in Paris. Kitabgi Khan made contact with Henry Drummond Wolff, the former British ambassador to Persia, and asked if Wolff can not find someone who have the interest in the exploitation of the Persian oil resources. Wolff met in London to William Knox D' Arcy, who had made his fortune in Australia with a gold mine. D' Arcy should get one of the most important oil-producing concessions that led to the establishment of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. For his discovery of de Morgan received by Naser al -Din Shah the sun and lion north. On March 9, 1906, he received the Order of Commandeur de la Légion d' Honneur by the French Legion of Honour.
De Morgan's work as a numismatist remained incomplete because only the first three volumes of his Manuel de Numismatique Orientale have been published. In the fifth volume he wanted on his excavations in Wasit, where mints came to light, report. This is clear evidence had been furnished that many mints only by name existed since the dirham was struck in Wasit. These results had previously been doubted, though a witness was known for.
Writings (selection )
- Catalogue des monuments et de l' Égypte antique inscriptions, Volume 1: Nubie à Kom Ombos, 1894; Volume 2 and 3: Description du Temple d' Ombos, 1895-1909.
- Fouilles a Dahchour 1894-1895, 2 volumes, Vienna 1903
- Recherches sur les Origines de l' Égypte, 2 volumes, 1896-1897.
- Manuel de Numismatique Orientale, 3 volumes, 1923-1936 (unfinished).