Bouriant at Amarna: an almost forgotten French mission Tell el-Amarna is a site closely connected to the Egypt Exploration Society: Norman de Garis Davies worked there as the Society’s surveyor in the early 1900s, and it was again active on site between 1920 and 1936, and then from the late 1970s onwards. Yet other missions have left their traces, too – sometimes shadowy – as archive research by Delphine Driaux shows. In 2010, the relocation of the Archives De pa r t me nt of t he I ns ti tu t Fr a nç ais d’Archéologie Orientale (IFAO) in Cairo resulted in an extensive stock-take of its holdings – and the rediscovery of a set of documents on the rock tombs of Amarna. The batch contains handwritten notes, sketches, 32 photographs and 244 drawings produced at the end of the 19th century by an expedition led by Urbain Bouriant (18491903), then Director of the IFAO (from 1886 to 1898). Funded by an EES Field and Research Grant, the study of these documents helps to shed a new light on early archaeological work at Amarna and provides an opportunity to learn more about a now largely forgotten mission and its activities at the site, today often overshadowed by the complete publication of the tombs by Norman de Garis Davies a few years later (1903-1908). The history of the French expedition at Amarna dates back to the very creation of the IFAO in 1880. At that time, Bouriant was one of the scientific members of the Institute (from 1881 to 1883), directed by Gaston Maspero. During his first years in Egypt the young Egyptologist had expressed a strong interest in the ‘heretic’ Pharaoh Akhenaten. In 1882, he and Maspero paid a first visit to ‘the caves of Tell el-Amarna’. After this shor t tour, Bouriant was curious to check if all the tombs in the area – most of which were unexplored – were really empty, as it was assumed. In April 1883, he took advantage of an inspection tour
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with Maspero to stop at Amarna again. This was, at last, the opportunity to explore the many uncleared tombs. The pair were therefore undertaking indepth work at the site eight years before Petrie obtained permission to excavate. Focusing their efforts on the South Tombs, Maspero and Bouriant started their first day on site in the tomb of Ay (no. 25), copying the texts. Work there, however, did not take long as the tomb was already known and had been published by Lepsius: only one new inscription, located on the west side of the door thickness and overlooked by the German Egyptologist, was recorded. The two men then moved on to other tombs nearby, looking for unexplored monuments and hoping for ‘beautiful results’. Unfortunately, their efforts were not very successful. By day’s end, five tombs had been opened, but only a handful of inscriptions had been found preserved, like those of Ipy (no. 10) and Ramose (no. 11). Feeling badly indisposed, Maspero, moreover, was forced to shorten the mission. Nevertheless, before leaving Amarna, Bouriant made the most of his last day on site to continue his work in the necropolis. Seven tombs located at the top of the hill were cleared but none of them contained inscriptions or scenes, until eventually, near the tomb of Tutu (no. 8) – already known since the mission of Lepsius – Bouriant noticed part of an inscribed door, hidden by the sand. After workmen cleared the tomb (no. 9) – filled with sand but not yielding any objects that