DRIOTON, (CHANOINE) ETIENNE MARIE FELIX (1889-1961)

A French Egyptologist. He studied Egyptian and Coptic in the Ecole libre des Langues orientales at the Catholic Institute of Paris. Ultimately, he taught Egyptian philology and Coptic at the same institute. He produced a Cours de grammaire égyptienne (Paris, 1919).

Drioton worked with Charles Boreux at the Louvre in 1926, and in 1929 he undertook the epigraphic survey at the Medamud excavations of the Institut français d’Egypte directed by G. Foucart. In 1936 he succeeded Pierre Lacau as Director of the Egyptian Antiquities Service and lectured at the new Institute of Egyptology of the University of Cairo. After his return to France, he was appointed as a director of the Centre national de la Recherche scientifique and professor at the Collège de France.

His works in the field of Egyptology are numerous, but he contributed also to Coptic studies in many journals and reviews. Most titles are listed in A Coptic Bibliography (Kammerer, 1950, 1969). The last was published a year before his death, Boiserie copte de style pharaonique (Paris, 1960).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Dawson, W. R., and E. P. Uphill. Who Was Who in Egyptology, pp. 88-90. London, 1972.
• Kammerer, W., comp. A Coptic Bibliography. Ann Arbor, Mich., 1950; repr. New York, 1969.

AZIZ S. ATIYA