« Ah ! qui dira les torts de l’Égypte… » Lorsque Paul Perdrizet louait les mérites de l’hellénisme à Franz Cumont

Abstract

Among the pages of an off-print of Franz Cumont preserved at the Academia Belgica, an unpublished letter by Paul Perdrizet (1870-1937) has recently been discovered. Paul Perdrizet was a Hellenist, an archaeologist and the author of a number of publications relative to Greece, Anatolia, the Near East and to Egypt under Hellenic influence. In that letter Perdrizet airs fierce criticisms against Egyptian Hellenism in the Lagid era. The analysis of that document and of the intellectual context wherein it takes place provides an opportunity to ponder the perception Franz Cumont had of the land of the Pharaos and his way of interpreting the encounter between Hellenic culture and Egyptian culture in Hellenistic times.

Keywords

• Franz Cumont
• Paul Perdrizet
• oriental religions
• Hellenism
• Egypt