Les Nouvelles de l’Archéologie (Jun 2012)

L’archéologie au service de la colonisation  ?

  • Amaury Lorin 

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4000/nda.1648
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 128
pp. 27 – 31

Abstract

Read online

The École française d’Extrême-Orient (Éfeo), the French School for Asian Studies, was created in 1898 by Paul Doumer, Governor-General of Indo-China, along the pattern already established in Athens (1846) and Roma (1875). France was consolidating the structures of its colonial domination in South-East Asia then. The firstly named « Mission archéologique permanente en Indo-Chine » became the Éfeo in 1900 in order to perpetuate it. While European imperial powers were rivaling in every field in Asia – political as well as scientific –, the creation of the Éfeo aims at making up lost time by France. Born in the context of colonialism, the Éfeo provides the example of a major functional actor of the knowledge of a « different past ». The creation of the Conservation des monuments d’Angkor (1908) will be the origin of a fascinating archeological saga.

Keywords