Christiane Desroches Noblecourt

Christiane Desroches Noblecourt (17 November 1913 – 23 June 2011) was a French Egyptologist.

She was the author of many books on Egyptian art and history and was also known for her role in the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia from flooding caused by the Aswan Dam.

She was born Christiane Desroches on 17 November 1913, in Paris, daughter of Louis Desroches (lawyer) and Madeleine Girod.

In 1922 she was fascinated by Howard Carter’s discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, and encouraged by priest and scholar, Father Étienne Drioton, she joined the Egyptian Antiquities department at the Louvre.

She studied Egyptology at École du Louvre and received a Diploma in Archaeology in 1935 under Étienne Drioton and Charles Boreux.

In 1937, she received her PhD in philology from the École Pratique des Hautes études of the Sorbonne, under Gustave Lefebvre, Alexandre Moret and Raymond Weill.

She was the first woman to be a fellow of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology (IFAO), and was also the first woman to lead an archaeological dig, in 1938.

She excavated at the IFAO sites at Edfu, Deir el-Medina, Medamud and Karnak North from 1938 to 1940.

In 1940, during World War II, she returned to Paris and joined the Resistance, hiding the Louvre's Egyptian treasures in free areas of France.

In December 1940, she was arrested at Moulins but was freed after three days.

In 1942, she married André Noblecourt, an engineer, and later security advisor to the national museums of France, International Council of Museums (ICOM) and UNESCO.

They had one son.

With the existing dam's capacity not meeting the needs of Egypt's ever-growing population, in 1954 the government of Gamal Abdel Nasser decided to build a new dam.

The monuments of ancient Nubia would have been flooded if the project had gone ahead as planned.

Mustafa Amer, head of the Antiquities Service, set up the Centre des études et de documentation d’archéologie égyptienne (CEDAE), and in 1954, reportedly Amer sent a telegram and letter to UNESCO in Paris suggesting as a possible archive specialist for the new Centre, one of which was Desroches Noblecourt, then curator of Egyptian antiquities at the Louvre.

Desroches Noblecourt was chosen as the UNESCO's advisor to the CEDAE and she arrived in Cairo in November 1954.

Amer stated that he never suggested Desroches Noblecourt but they worked well together.

They began with the recording of the Tombs of the Nobles at Luxor, but in early 1955, Desroches Noblecourt reported back to UNESCO that the potential flooding of the monuments of ancient Nubia by the new Aswan High Dam were of immediate importance.

Desroches Noblecourt and France's role in the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia saw an improvement in Franco-Egyptian relations, which had been poor since the Suez Canal crisis of 1956.

In 1959, Desroches Noblecourt encouraged Sarwat Okasha, the Egyptian Minister of Culture to ask UNESCO for its support.

Later that year both the Sudanese and Egyptian governments requested UNESCO's support and together they launched the twenty-two year campaign to save the temples of ancient Nubia.

Fifty countries contributed funds to save the monuments.

The Temple of Amada was a difficult case, because of its small, beautifully painted reliefs.

Desroches Noblecourt announced that France would save it.

However, more funds were needed for this project.

To this end Desroches Noblecourt requested an interview with Charles de Gaulle, who had no idea of the commitment she had made in the name of her country.

Reportedly on learning of it, he demanded, “Madame, how dare you say that France will save the temple, without authorization from my government?” Noblecourt replied, “General, how dare you make an appeal on the radio without authorization from Pétain?” De Gaulle agreed to honour Noblecourt's promise.

Ultimately the rescue project, including the transportation and reconstruction of the temples on their new sites, took over twenty years.

In 1963, Desroches Noblecourt published Tutankhamen: Life and Death of a Pharaoh, and in the years following, as head of Egyptian Antiquities at the Louvre, Desroches Noblecourt organised the Tutankhamun exhibition in 1967.

The exhibition entitled "Tutankhamun and His Times" was visited by over a million people.

The proceeds from the exhibition went to the Abu Simbel rescue fund, totaling nearly US$500,000.

The exhibition was bigger, with more objects from the tomb, than had previously toured North America and Japan.

Desroches Noblecourt negotiated the objects that would form the exhibition, and they included the gold mask of Tutankhamun, marking the first time it entered Europe.

Desroches Noblecourt organized several exhibitions with objects traveling from Egypt, some for the first time, namely the Tutankhamun exhibition at the Louvre in 1967 and Ramses II in 1976.

In 1972, in recognition of France's contributions to the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the government of Anwar Sadat gave to the Louvre the bust of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten).

In May 1976, there was an exhibition of Ramses II at the Grand Palais, and by September it had had over 650,000 visitors.

In September 1976, Ramses II's mummified body flew into Paris, accompanied from Cairo by Desroches Noblecourt, where it underwent testing at Musée de l'Homme at Trocaclero, a branch of the Paris Museum of Natural History.

She died on 23 June 2011 at 97.

She is buried in Mondement-Montgivroux cemetery in France.

Desroches Noblecourt was a leading figure in the campaign for the preservation of ancient Nubian temples from flooding caused by the new Aswan High Dam.