Jump to content

Alexis Mallon

Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Joe Roe (talk | contribs) at 13:21, 30 September 2021 (→Archaeology: +image). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Alexis Mallon (1875–1934), better known as Père Mallon, was a French Jesuit priest and archaeologist. He founded the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem[1] and made important early contributions to the study of the prehistory of the Levant with his excavations at Teleilat el Ghassul (1929–1934).[2]

Education and career

Born in France, Mallon received his Jesuit training in Beirut, Lebanon, and spent four years studying theology in England between 1905 and 1909.[1] In Beirut he also studied languages and taught Egyptian and Coptic at Saint Joseph University.[1] He published one of the first grammars of Coptic in 1904.[2]

In 1910, he was transferred to the newly-founded Pontifical Biblical Institute and in 1913 was sent to Jerusalem to set up a branch of the institute there.[1] After being forced to move to Cairo by the outbreak of the First World War,[2] Mallon returned to Palestine in 1919 and was finally able to establish the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem in 1927.[1]

Archaeology

Aerial photograph of Teleilat el Ghassul during Mallon's excavations, 1931.

Mallon's interest in archaeology was fostered by Godefroy Zumoffen, a fellow Jesuit in Beirut. Together they compiled the first systematic gazetteer of sites in the Levant, published in 1925.[2] Unlike most of his contemporaries in the region, and despite his calling, Mallon's interests were in prehistory rather than biblical archaeology.[3] He discovered prehistoric stone tools at Shuqba cave in 1924 and conducted trial excavations there in 1928.[2][4] Subsequent excavations at Shuqba by British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod unearthed the first traces of the Mesolithic outside of Europe and defined the Natufian culture.[5]

Mallon's most notable contribution to archaeology was his excavations at Teleilat el Ghassul on the northern shore of the Dead Sea.[2] Contemporary press reports proclaimed the site to be the remains of the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah, but Mallon himself considered this unlikely.[6] He directed excavations there until his death in 1934, establishing the site as one of the key Chalcolithic sequences in the region and the type site of the Ghassulian culture.[7][8] Robert Koeppel of the Pontifical Biblical Institute continued the excavations after Mallon's death.[2][6]

Mallon had a significant influence on René Neuville, introducing him to prehistoric archaeology when he first arrived in Jerusalem as a diplomat in 1926.[2] The two went on to collaborate on excavations at Oumm Qatafa,[2] and Neuville assisted Mallon at Teleilat el Ghassul.[6]

Selected publications

  • Grammaire Copte (1904)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e "Fr Alexis Mallon SJ". Teleilat Ghassul Excavation Archives. Pontifical Biblical Institute. 10 December 2019. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Bar-Yosef, Ofer; Valla, François. "The Contributions of Early French Scholars to Levantine Prehistory". In Goldfus, Haim; Gruber, Mayer I.; Yona, Shamir; Fabian, Peter (eds.). 'Isaac went out to the field': Studies in Archaeology and Ancient Cultures in Honor of Isaac Gilead. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 40–47.
  3. ^ Davis, Thomas W. (2004). Shifting Sands: The Rise and Fall of Biblical Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 80–81. ISBN 978-0-19-516710-8. {{cite book}}: |first2= missing |last2= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ Garrod, Dorothy A. E. (1928). "Excavation of a Palaeolithic Cave in Western Judaea". Palestine Exploration Quarterly. 60 (4): 182–185. doi:10.1179/peq.1928.60.4.182.
  5. ^ Boyd, Brian (1999). "'Twisting the kaleidoscope': Dorothy Garrod and the 'Natufian Culture'". In Davies, William; Charles, Ruth (eds.). Dorothy Garrod and the progress of the Palaeolithic. Oxford: Oxbow. pp. 209–223. ISBN 9781785705199.
  6. ^ a b c Cerny, Edward A. (1940). "Archaeological Corner: Teleilat Ghassul". The Catholic Biblical Quarterly. 2 (3): 264–266. ISSN 0008-7912.
  7. ^ "Searching for Sodom and Gomorrah?". Jesuits in the Holy Land. Pontifical Biblical Institute. 24 November 2017. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  8. ^ Briffa, Josef Mario (6 April 2021). From Sodom to Ghassul: The Legacy of the Ghassul excavation at 90. 12th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (12th ICAANE). Bologna. doi:10.5281/zenodo.4593713.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Alexis_Mallon&oldid=1047361700"