Citation:
Abstract:
In 1912, following the resignation of Jacques de Morgan, Roland de Mecquenem, who had joined the delegation team in Persia since 1903, was in charge of the excavation of Susa in Iran. The missions followed one another each year until 1939, interrupted only during the First World War. At the end of each of his campaigns, Mecquenem sent a mission report to his ministry of guardianship, the Ministry of Public Instruction. These reports are now kept at the Historical Center of the National Archives in Paris. They are generally divided into two parts, the first is devoted to the results of the current campaign while the second describes the daily life of the mission in Susa. Only archaeological results are published on this site, along with their appendices; from 1921, these include inventories, plans and photographs illustrating the progress of the work and the main discoveries.
The reports by Roland de Mecquenem constitute a unique collection of documents that partly make up for the deficiencies, frequently underlined, of the excavator's publications. Indeed, unlike the broad syntheses he published, his reports were written at the end of each mission. They thus more reliably trace the evolution of sites open between 1912 and 1939 and shed new light on some of them that Mecquenem considered unproductive and that he did not mention in his publications.
The website allows online consultation and download of all unpublished documentation of Roland de Mecquenem: annual reports, inventories, plans and photographs associated with reports. The databases that were created for this publication also offer the possibility of querying all the data in several search modes, free or indexed. The search help placed in the top banner of the site offers assistance with the use of the free search engine. Finally, the publications of Roland de Mecquenem are also available for download on this site.