On 26 February 1901, the President of the Republic, Émile Loubet, signed the decree that laid down the statutes of the École française d'Extrême-Orient, which had come into being three years earlier in Saigon as an archaeological mission, in accordance with the wishes of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. This year the School is celebrating its 120th anniversary.

Faithful to the EFEO's primary mission, over this long period, generations of scholars have contributed to the "archaeological and philological exploration" of the whole of Asia, from India to Japan. In the Chinese hemerological tradition, these one hundred and twenty years would correspond to twice the sexagesimal cycle. Symbolically, they also correspond to the two phases that the EFEO went through: its Indochinese period up to the end of the 1950s, and then the period following the establishment of its headquarters in Paris. We are now entering a third cycle...

In these turbulent times, we feel more than ever the importance of human exchanges in research and the need for direct contact with the field. At the beginning of this year, I hope that, overcoming the present difficulties, each of you will be able to carry out the projects that are close to your hearts.

Christophe Marquet,
Director of the EFEO

Christophe Marquet (EFEO) speaks on: "Interroger les images populaires japonaises : Leroi-Gourhan versus Yanagi" [Question Japanese popular images: Leroi-Gourhan versus Yanagi]. This seminar is part of the sequence Images: objects and sources of the ASIA seminar of the master "Études Asiatiques" .

From 10.30am to 12pm. The conference will take place online upon prior registration. Once registered you will receive the elements to log in (seminar link and password).

The thinker Yanagi Muneyoshi and the ethnologist André Leroi-Gourhan were, in the 1920s and 1930s, behind the rediscovery of a popular Japanese imagery called Ōtsu-e 大津絵 ("images from Ōtsu"), named after its production site near Kyōto, between the 17th and 19th centuries. We will compare two texts: Shoki Ōtsu-e 初期大津繪 ("Primitive Images of Ōtsu", 1929) by Yanagi, and a manuscript by Leroi-Gourhan that remained unpublished during his lifetime, Formes populaires de l’art religieux au Japon [Popular Forms of Religious Art in Japan], from the first fieldwork carried out by the ethnologist in Japan in 1937-1939. These writings reveal different methods and views on the same corpus of images. They lead us to reflect on the question of the interpretation of figurative documents according to disciplinary approaches, in this case aesthetics, art history and the ethnology of material life and techniques. The works brought back from Japan by Leroi-Gourhan, which recently entered the library of the EFEO - of which he was a corresponding member - will serve to shed light on the subject.

Legend from left to right: Yanagi Muneyoshi, Shoki Ōtsu-e, 1929; "Le poisson-chat à la gourde" [Catfish in a gourd], drawing by Leroi-Gourhan based on an Ōtsu-e image carved in wood by Nichinen, circa 1940 (MSH Mondes, Nanterre, archives ALG137/1/1).

Sculpture conservation workshop at the National Museum of Cambodia - EFEO: Statue of Krishna Govardhana of Phnom Da (Ka 1641) being restored. The statue will be presented in the exhibition "Revealing Krishna: Journey to Cambodia's Sacred Mountain" at the Cleveland Museum of Art from November 2021.

Photo: Chea Socheat making the final adjustments to the positioning of the legs before installing a discreet backhold device.

From 1-5 March 2021 the team of the Tamil Cankam project at the EFEO centre in Pondicherry will conduct a miniature Classical Tamil Winter Seminar in order to read the Kalittokai, one of the Cankam anthologies that have been critically re-edited recently. The text represents the apex of the earlier type of sophisticated poetry, and matters are further complicated by the highly influential medieval commentary by Naccinārkkiṉiyar.

Outside participation will be welcome, but since the whole meeting will have to take place online, due to the continuing pandemic, the number of places will be restricted to twenty-five participants.

For participation and registration please contact Eva Wilden.
(eva.wilden[at]uni-hamburg.de)

Éric Bourdonneau will speak at the master and doctoral seminar "Les sciences sociales et l'Asie du Sud-Est" [Social Sciences and South-East Asia] organised at the initiative of Manuelle Franck (Inalco), which will take place from 11 to 15 January 2021.

The seminar is open to all but requires registration with Manuelle Franck to obtain the zoom link of the seminar.
(manuel.franck[at]inalco.fr)

On Monday 11 January at 5.30 pm, Paola Calanca will speak at the 2nd session of the series of meetings "Les Plumes (dé)masquées du CCJ" as a discussant during the presentation by Guillaume Carré of his book Avant la tempête: la Corée face à la menace japonaise (1530-1590).

The EFEO library is open on appointment from Monday to Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. It offers a document loan and return service every Wednesday.

Make an appointment (reading space AND/OR loan-return service).

Check the EFEO's Facebook page and Twitter account regularly for any updates on the terms and conditions of the public reception service.

The EFEO's photographic holdings remain accessible on the photo library website.

Legend: Console carved in the shape of a young girl with a tree (śālabhañjikā), north upright of the east portal of stūpa no. 1 (outer side) of Sāñcī, Madhya Pradesh, India, between 1910 and 1911 (EFEO_GOLV00255).

On 22 October, the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH) decided to support 29 new heritage protection projects in 14 countries. Following the recommendations of a scientific committee chaired by Jean-Luc Martinez (president and director of the Louvre museum), the ALIPH foundation board has thus allocated funding of $255,178 to the program of study and restoration of the monumental statue of the Dancing Shiva of Koh Ker (2021-2024) conducted by the EFEO (resp. Éric Bourdonneau) in collaboration with the National Authority for Preah Vihear, the Angkor Conservation Authority, and the National Museum of Cambodia.

Following the proposal of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, this programme will also benefit from a grant of 20,000 euros awarded, on an exceptional basis, by the committee of the Simone and Cino Del Duca Foundation (Institut de France).

In the wake of a technical study phase, the following activities (also sponsored by the GFC Pharma group) are scheduled until 2023-2024: restoration and actual reassembly of the fragments of the statue; design and implementation of a supporting structure; sessions of the scientific and technical restoration committee; training of professionals in the conservation-restoration of sculptures within the framework of the Angkor Conservation Department; architectural and museographic programming of the space that will house the restored statue.

The EFEO is a partner in the ANR project entitled "Cooliebrokers: Intermediation in the organization of migrant work within the French colonial empire in Asia and the Pacific, from the early 19th to the mid-20th century". Coordinated by Eric Guerassimoff, University of Paris (Diderot), the project brings together several units and institutions, including CESSMA, IrASIA, IFRAE, CREDO, the Overseas National Archives, the State Archives Department of Vietnam, the Archives Service of New Caledonia and the EFEO. It aims to study "migratory intermediation", the social and political figures of the "brokers" of labour relations, which remain a fundamental issue for the historiography of colonisation in Asia and the Pacific.

With a view to celebrating its 120th anniversary, the École française d'Extrême-Orient is launching a series of video vignettes, entitled "EFEO's Asian Treasures", designed to make the rich holdings of its library and archives better known: prints, published works, manuscripts, maps, plans, photographs, images, etc.

The first video entitled "Les paysans de la forêt à travers le regard d'un ethnographe: le fonds photographique de Jean Boulbet au Sud Vietnam, 1947-1963" is online. Catherine Scheer and Isabelle Poujol present the photographic collection of Jean Boulbet, a young demobilized soldier in Vietnam who became a planter and whose strong interest in mountain populations pioneered the study of ethnology at the EFEO.

Legend: Stopover in a Maa' village, South Vietnam, Jean Boulbet collection.

Discover the 1st newsletter of the DHARMA project The Domestication of "Hindu" Asceticism and the Religious Making of South and Southeast Asia (ERC 809994) and the latest blog article entitled: "Environmental study of the archaeological site of Bumiayu (South Sumatra, Indonesia)".

The website of the EFE Network offers a renewed presentation of its tools and services: news, publications, information on libraries, archaeological sites and work sites, calls for applications, projects and communications...