At the French School of Athens, new technologies are revolutionizing ancient studies

There is no shortage of reason to marvel at Delphi. The panorama over the valley, with the Gulf of Corinth on the horizon, is breathtaking. The temple of Apollo and the theater are dazzlingly beautiful. But in early June, an otherwise outdated attraction steals the show from the ancient ruins. “Look, archaeologists! »murmurs a French tourist.

Equipped with walking shoes, fedora hats, large white sheets and old riding brushes, five individuals climb on the monument of the kings of Argos. “With our perfect panoply of learned aristocrats from the 19^e century, we get noticed », agrees Julien Faguer, 32, responsible for a research project on the archaeological site. A few hours later, the doctor of history is unrecognizable: he has put on a city suit and traveled 200 kilometers to reach the splendid garden of the French School of Athens (E FA).

The pioneer of the eighteen foreign schools in Athens, and the most prestigious of French research institutions abroad, is organizing its annual conference this Wednesday 1^er June. A hundred people gathered around the buffet, opposite the rich library of 88,000 volumes, accessible 24 hours a day, and which alone encouraged more than one Hellenist to make the trip.

Glass in hand, a handful of young archaeologists have fun spotting celebrities in the crowd. Here, an illustrious academician. There, a museum director. Further, an official of the Greek Ministry of Culture. “The annual conference is a social event. We come to shake hands. We meet Greek colleagues who can then facilitate our relations with the authorities.”explains Julien Faguer.

In 2022, the ceremony is all the more eagerly awaited as it is part of the celebrations for the 175th anniversary of the EFA. Founded under King Louis-Philippe in 1846, the EFA “forged the myth of a university elite who set off in search of the vestiges of Antiquity and was responsible for representing the learned nations to an Orient judged to be rough-hewn”recalls the professor of classical archeology Francis Prost in a special issue of the journal Archeology devoted to French schools abroad.

When the first members of the EFA arrived in Greece to confront the homeland of classicism, they knew neither the means nor the end of the adventure. And for good reason: their stay is less archaeological than political.

In The History and Work of the French School of Athens (1901), Georges Radet mocks the content of the first missions of the institution: “We ride horses, we water, we dig a hectare of garden a day and we have mustaches of one decimetre. We show up, we pay visits, we dance at balls. » By detaching its university elite to the East, France wants to increase its influence in the Mediterranean regions. The stakes are all the more crucial as the new Greek nation is then subject to the control of the great powers that intervened alongside it during the war of independence: the United Kingdom and Russia.

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