«En-quête d’Orient»

The ‘Photographic Heritage’ collection of the Ecole francaise d’Athenes (EFA) is pursuing its interest in photographic archives: after Delos, Thasos and Philippi, the images reproduced here lead us in the footsteps of other archaeologists in the direction of Anatolia, the Near East and Central Asia. Although the photographs are not directly part of the archives of the French School at Athens, they nevertheless bear witness to its history: after learning archaeology ‘in the school of Greece’, the scientific members of the School often continued their investigations beyond its borders, in search of the different forms of Hellenism, its hybrids and its mutations. Paul Perdrizet, Henri Seyrig, Daniel Schlumberger and Albert Gabriel, all associated with the French School at Athens and the University of Strasbourg, played key roles in the creation of French archaeological research institutes under the French Mandate in the years between the World Wars. Their pictures converse with those from the archives of the EFA and a number of other institutes, re-telling the way these researchers viewed their attraction to the Orient and their quest for archaeological remains, invariably paired with a curiosity about the men and women who accompanied this exploration. The volume En-quete d’Orient bears witness to this shared adventure, and I am grateful to the University of Strasbourgand to all the authors in the organizing team for the synergies that mean we are now given to see these out-of-the-ordinary journeys. The result of painstaking work to identify and edit hitherto unknown photographs, this investigation or ‘in-quest’ follows in the tracks of these archaeological explorers who, on the strength of their Greek experience, were above all able to look at a world whose changes were in the offing and to render its legacy visible.

• Edited by G.M. Weissrock
• Edited by M. Noussis