Édouard Muller Ardaillon (4 May 1867 at Mazères in Ariège – 19 September 1926 at

Oran Oran () is a major coastal city located in the northwest of Algeria. It is considered the second most important city of Algeria, after the capital, Algiers, because of its population and commercial, industrial and cultural importance. It is w ...

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

) was a French

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

and

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

Career

After graduating from the Boys' Catholic College of Sainte-Marie in

Saint-André-de-Cubzac Saint-André-de-Cubzac (, literally ''Saint Andrew of Cubzac-les-Ponts, Cubzac''; , ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Gironde Departments of France, department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. Its inhabitants are called ''Cubza ...

, he undertook a Bachelor of Arts. He was a scholar of the

lycée Louis-le-Grand The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on Rue Saint-Jacques (Paris), rue Saint-Jacques in central Par ...

from 1884 to 1887. In 1887, he enrolled in the

École Normale Supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

where he achieved the

Agrégation In France, the () is the most competitive and prestigious examination for civil service in the French public education A state school, public school, or government school is a primary school, primary or secondary school that educates all stu ...

in 1890; he then joined the

École française d'Athènes The French School at Athens (, EfA; ''Gallikí Scholí Athinón'') is one of the seventeen foreign archaeological institutes operating in Athens, Greece. History Founded in 1846, the EfA is the oldest foreign institute in Athens. Its early f ...

(graduated 1891). In 1897, he defended his thesis on the

mines of Laurion The mines of Laurion (or Lavrion) are ancient mines located in southern Attica between Thorikos and Cape Sounion, approximately 50 kilometers south of the center of Athens, in Greece. The mines are best known for producing silver, but they were ...

, the silver mines near

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, whose rich deposits and intense exploitation played a key role in the development of Athenian power in the classical period; it still remains a reference work on this subject. He also carried out excavations in the port of

Delos Delos (; ; ''Dêlos'', ''Dâlos''), is a small Greek island near Mykonos, close to the centre of the Cyclades archipelago. Though only in area, it is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. ...

and visited the

Cyclades The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate i ...

Ionia Ionia ( ) was an ancient region encompassing the central part of the western coast of Anatolia. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements. Never a unified state, it was named after the Ionians who ...

Lydia Lydia (; ) was an Iron Age Monarchy, kingdom situated in western Anatolia, in modern-day Turkey. Later, it became an important province of the Achaemenid Empire and then the Roman Empire. Its capital was Sardis. At some point before 800 BC, ...

and

Rhodes Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...

. In June 1894 he married a young Greek girl while he was in Athens, with whom he went on to have two children. From November 1896 he was in charge of a geography programme in the faculty of Arts at Lille, where he became chair of geography in 1899. Under his direction, the geography department of this university became important. His career received the encouragement and support of

Georges Perrot Georges Perrot (12 November 1832 – 30 June 1914) was a French archaeologist. He taught at the Sorbonne from 1875 and was director of the École Normale Supérieure from 1888 to 1902. In 1874 he was elected to the Academie des Inscriptions ...

, director of l'École normale supérieure; Théophile Homolle, Director of the

, and

Charles Bayet Charles Marie Adolphe Louis Bayet (25 May 1849, Liège – 16 September 1918, Toulon) was a French historian, who was a specialist in Byzantine art. Biography From 1868 he studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, then enlisted fo ...

, rector of Lille university. In 1905 he became rector of the University of Besançon.Catherine Valenti, « Les membres de l'École française d'Athènes : étude d'une élite universitaire (1846-1992) », ''Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique'', 120-1, 1996, p.170 Finally, he was rector of the

University of Algiers The University of Algiers 1 (), commonly called Benyoucef Benkhedda, is a public research university based in Algiers, Algeria. Founded in 1909 from the amalgamation of different French colonial educational institutions, it has become the oldes ...

from 1908 until his death in 1926.

Selected publications

* 1893. "Rapport sur le tremblement de terre de Zante" (Report on the

Zante Zakynthos (also spelled Zakinthos; ; ) or Zante (, , ; ; from the Venetian form, traditionally Latinized as Zacynthus) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the third largest of the Ionian Islands, with an area of , and a coastline in ...

Earthquake), ''

Annales de géographie Annals are a concise form of historical writing which record events chronologically, year by year. The equivalent word in Latin and French is ''annales'', which is used untranslated in English in various contexts. List of works with titles contai ...

'' 2(7) 273-280
Online
* 1896. "Rapports sur les fouilles du port de Delos" ''

Bulletin de correspondance hellénique Bulletin or The Bulletin may refer to: Periodicals (newspapers, magazines, journals) * ''Bulletin'' (online newspaper), a Swedish online newspaper * ''The Bulletin'' (Australian periodical), an Australian magazine (1880–2008) ** Bulletin Deb ...

'' 20 (1):428-445
Online
* 1897. "Répartition des Chrétiens et des Musulmans dans l'île de Crète" (Division of Christians and Muslims on the Island of Crete) ''Annales de Géographie'' 6(27): 255–257. * 1898. ''Les mines du Laurion dans l’Antiquité'' (The Mines of Laurion in Antiquity) Thesis. * 1901. "Les principes de la géographie moderne" (The Principles of Modern Geography) ''Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Lille'' 35, 269–90. * 1902. ''Carte archéologique de l’île de Délos'' (Archaeological Map of the Island of Delos).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ardaillon, Edouard French hellenists 19th-century French geographers French archaeologists École Normale Supérieure alumni Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni Academic staff of the University of Lille Nord de France Knights of the Legion of Honour Members of the French School at Athens People from Ariège (department) 1867 births 1926 deaths Academic staff of the University of Algiers People of French Algeria