| 1 | Name: | Dr. Frantz Grenet | |
| Institution: | Collège de France | ||
| Year Elected: | 2017 | ||
| Class: | 4. Humanities | ||
| Subdivision: | 408 | ||
| Residency: | International | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1952 | ||
Frantz Grenet was born on 6 November 1952 at Gruchet-le-Valasse (Normandy, France). From 1972 to 1977 he studied History at the École Normale Supérieure (Paris) (« agrégation d’Histoire » in 1975), Persian at the Institut des Langues Orientales, Middle Iranian languages at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes. After a first acquaintance with Middle Eastern field archaeology in Lebanon (Tell Arqa), he met Central Asian archaeology in 1975, when he took part to the excavations of the Hellenistic city of Ai Khanum. From 1977 to 1981 he was posted in DAFA (Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan, Kabul), first as research fellow, then as deputy-director, under the successive directorships of Paul Bernard and Jean-Claude Gardin. Excavations in Ai Khanum continued in 1977 and 1978, then were interrupted by the war. In 1981 he presented his thesis Les pratiques funéraires dans l’Asie centrale sédentaire de la conquête grecque à l’islamisation (Université Paris 1, director Jean-Marie Dentzer) ; an expanded version of this thesis was published under the same title in 1984 (Paris, Éditions du CNRS). From 1981 to 2013 he worked in the CNRS (research fellow, then research director since 1990), in the team UMR 8546 « Archéologie d’Orient et d’Occident » based at the École Normale Supérieure (45 rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris). In addition, from 1999 onwards he taught as « directeur d’études » at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne, Paris), section of Religious Sciences, chair « Religions of the ancient Iranian world », a consequence of his continuous interest in Zoroastrian studies linked with his joint work with the late Professor Mary Boyce (M. Boyce, F. Grenet, A History of Zoroastrianism, vol. III: Zoroastrianism under Macedonian and Roman rule, Leiden, 1991). In 1989 he has the opportunity to return to the Central Asian archaeological field, with the establishment under his directorship of the French-Uzbek Archaeological Mission in Sogdiana, which since then has continuously carried out excavations and surveys at Afrasiab (the site of ancient Samarkand) and other sites in Uzbekistan, bringing new information on all periods from the early Iron Age to the Mongol invasion. In 2004 and 2012 he also returned to Afghanistan for fieldwork. In 2001, invited professor at UC Berkeley. Since 2013, professor at the Collège de France (Paris), chair « History and Cultures of pre-Islamic Central Asia ». In 2017, invited professor at Renmin University (Peking). Author of four books : Les pratiques funéraires…, 1984 ; L’Asie centrale préislamique, bibliographie critique 1977-1986, 1988 ; La Geste d’Ardashir fils de Pâbag, 2003; The Golden Journey to Samarkand (in Chinese), 2016. Editor or co-editor of four volumes, co-organizer of four international conferences (lastly : Third SEECHAC International Colloquium Interaction in the Himalayas and Central Asia, Vienna, Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2013, published 2017), author or co-author of about 170 specialized articles in specialized journals or conference volumes. Member of the editorial boards of Studia Iranica (Paris), Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum (London). Corresponding member of Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente (since 1994), Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres (since 1997). Foreign Correspondent of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (since 2014). President of SEECHAC (European Society for the Study of Cultures of the Himalaya and Central Asia) since 2012. Member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (University of New York) since 2013. In October 2018 Frantz Grenet was awarded honorary citizenship of the city of Samarkand, in a ceremony at the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Paris. Personal Website : http://frantz.grenet.free.fr | |||