From 26 to 30 September 2022,
the Paul-Valéry University and the National Centre for Scientific Research,
through the Mixed Research Unit Archaeology of Mediterranean Societies
and its Nilotic and Mediterranean Egypt laboratory,
welcomed young researchers from the four cardinal points of the earth
to assess the current state of research in Egyptology,
throughout the world.
This event, which is now well established in the international scientific landscape,
thus put the city of Montpellier in the spotlight this year.
It's an annual congress,
it's been going on for 22 years.
It was launched in Oxford in the year 2000.
The aim of this conference is to bring together
the largest number of Egyptology students from all over the world.
Obviously, a lot of Europeans,
but also Egyptians
who work on the discipline of Egyptology,
and also people who come from the United States, from Australia, from Japan.
Get them to meet each other, to have them exchange ideas,
but also practices of the discipline
and then to create links between them, to create connections
to get a generation of international Egyptologists
who know each other and who work together.
It is up to me, as President of the Paul-Valéry University,
to have the honour and the immense pleasure of welcoming you...
Celebrating research in Egyptology in Montpellier was not a foregone conclusion,
as each year several institutions can claim this privilege.
The challenge was successfully taken up
by the Montpellier organising committee,
essentially made up of young researchers and doctoral students
from the Paul-Valéry University.
I am really very happy that this event
bringing together young researchers in Egyptology from all over the world
is taking place this year in Montpellier,
thanks to the initiative of some of the doctoral students
of the ENiM team.
Our opponent was the University of Chicago,
for the organisation of this congress,
and we won against them.
We were very happy, of course,
because it was already a lot of effort
before we even started to really organise the congress,
and then, as our bid was accepted,
we could really start working on the organisation of the congress.
It took us a whole year,
and then things were done quite gradually,
to make a call for papers
so that the candidates could propose conferences for the congress...
The institution then moves from being a candidate to being a selector.
We had almost 300 applicants
for about 100 places on the open conferences.
The solution that was chosen
was to establish a scientific council,
a scientific committee, made up of French and foreign researchers,
recognised, in post,
who evaluated all the proposals sent in,
who established a classification of these proposals
and on the basis of this ranking,
we have selected the candidates retained for the congress.
I'm really happy to be here and share my research
with the larger international community.
It's a really good experience,
and I'm really appreciative that the organizing committee accepted my paper.
People behave in similar ways across time and space,
so if you understand why the ancient Egyptian culture did something,
it might help us understand why we do things today
that might seem kind of strange
but probably are fully in line with the human experience.
Egyptology is one of the most important fields of humanities
that is concerned with the history of Egyptology,
and the history of Egypt, archaeology,
and the culture and civilization of ancient Egypt.
So, I think from my own point of view,
it is important to “get in touch” with this civilization,
and to spread it as much as we can,
and actually get in touch with colleagues and professors
from all over the world, in this important aspect of research.
2022 is also an anniversary date for Egyptology,
celebrating a discovery that was marked with a white stone.
This is another opportunity for the Nilotic and Mediterranean Egypt team
to make it known that the event is not only for specialists.
There is a very strong public appetite
around Egyptological events,
and one of the major themes of this congress
is also the commemoration
of the bicentenary of the deciphering of the hieroglyphs.
200 years ago,
Jean-François Champollion,
prescribing history, of course,
as the father of Egyptology, a French passion,
unlocked the secret
of one of the most fascinating phenomena of Egyptian civilization.
In the 18th and 19th centuries,
Orientalism spread throughout the Western world.
It was September 1822.
In the international competition around the stakes
represented by the discoveries in Egypt,
a young French scientist
was the first to discover the secret of hieroglyphs.
It is therefore in this context that Champollion intervenes,
who is in fact quite a young man because he was born in 1790,
and he makes this discovery in 1822.
So he is a scholar...
...who is at the turn of the 19ᵉ century,
and who combines two aspects which are complementary in him,
and which perhaps determined
the fact that he manages to discover the meaning of this writing,
to decipher it.
It's someone who has the encyclopedic mind of the 18ᵉ century,
we remember Diderot's encyclopedia,
but he is someone who acts in an extremely rational way.
The Rosetta Stone is a stele that was discovered
in the north of Egypt and it has three texts,
a text in hieroglyphics, another one in demotic
and a text in Greek.
We know very well that when you have to describe a language, you need a bilingual text.
It's a necessity,
and here we have this bilingual,
because there's Greek that we understand.
And at the same time, you need a related language.
And that related language is Coptic, and that's what's going to make the difference,
because Champollion has a perfect command of Coptic
and this knowledge will allow him to go faster than the other scholars.
200 years later, the fascination for Egyptology has remained intact.
The specialists are not mistaken:
in the 21st century, the discipline is more popular than ever.
It seemed obvious to us
to take advantage of this opportunity
to finally bring to light
these collections of the archives
and the library of Egyptology of the Paul-Valéry University.
With objects and books,
particularly in the context
of the bicentenary of the deciphering of the hieroglyphs.
It seemed quite natural to us
to present to a wide public,
within the Paul-Valéry University
and even beyond,
these patrimonial and scientific collections
of which the Montpellier Egyptology team is the depositary.
We have set up two exhibitions,
a photographic exhibition outside Paul-Valéry,
an exhibition of objects inside the site,
and this international congress
which includes sessions of lectures by researchers,
from all over the world,
and lectures by recognised Egyptologists,
French Egyptologists or Egyptologists working in France,
who present the latest advances in their work
or the latest advances in the discipline,
in free lectures, which are also broadcast freely online.
The stakes are enormous
because, contrary to what one might naively believe,
Egyptology is not closed in on itself.
On the contrary, it is in full development.
There has been what we call an Egypto-maniac tsunami,
which has caused Pharaonic culture
to infuse world culture.
And Egyptology as a science
is responsible for controlling this infusion of our knowledge of ancient Egypt
into world culture.
So it's a heavy responsibility,
and fortunately, in Montpellier, I think it's well taken care of.
I am absolutely amazed by the enthusiasm,
the youth and the competence of the whole team in Montpellier,
which is very worthy of Egyptology as it should be now.
Egyptology in the modern age
is precisely the credo that drives the Montpellier laboratory.
More than 50 years ago,
the Egyptology library of the Paul-Valéry University was created.
Today, the library's collection consists of nearly 35,000 documents.
With half a century of experience,
the laboratory's Egyptologists had time
to conceive their discipline as evolving,
i.e. able to rethink its own fundamentals.
There is a dimension of reflection of the discipline on itself,
so there are a lot of conferences
that are openings on the approaches that are those of Egyptology,
on the way also this discipline was born
and progressed in the 19ᵉ century,
because it is a really recent discipline,
and at the beginning of the 20ᵉ century,
and there is really a whole approach
of looking at the practices of the discipline.
This will obviously enrich the themes of our laboratory.
Egyptology is opening up to the world,
global issues such as feminism,
LGBT, post-colonialism are now taken on by Egyptology.
This openness must be encouraged
and, above all, the tendency to dogmatism must be combated.
The doxa must be respected,
but it must always be questioned,
know how to question it, revisit the themes,
when the literature encourages you to do so.
And so I see that in Montpellier
this is an imperative that is widely followed,
and it is really something absolutely exciting
to see these young Egyptologists who come from all over the world,
many Egyptians in particular, but from all continents,
and who present a very high level of research.
I was surprised by the level of these young people,
practically at the level of professionals.
Moreover, many of them are PhD students.
So for me, this conference is an absolute success.
I would like to come to Montpellier again, for sure.
First, it's a very cosy and nice city,
with friendly people.
Also, I like how here I'm developing
important friendships
with scholars and professors and sharing experiences with them,
getting to know their latest research
and the latest results of the ongoing research in the Egyptological community.
And I think this is important
because, as far as I know, with my knowledge,
Montpellier is one of the most important five chairs of Egyptology in France.
So, that's why I would like to come here again.
Egyptology still has much to teach us.
By shedding light on our past,
it also sheds light on the evolution of civilizations,
and knowledge of this evolution helps us to better understand our future.
There is no doubt that the discipline will be able to continue its mission,
provided that its backers
never lose awareness of these issues,
which are sometimes mentioned, somewhat absent-mindedly,
under the banner of the basic sciences.