Lenormant, FRANÇOIS, an archaeologist and scholar of altogether exceptional genius, was born in Paris, 17th January 1837, the son of Charles
Lenormant (1802-59), himself profoundly learned in Egyptology, numismatics, and archaeology generally, moreover, a fearless defender of the faith. The boy was early initiated into the studies of his life, at twenty carrying off the prize in numismatics of the Académie des Inscriptions with his Essai sur la Classification des Monnaies des Lagides (1856). At twenty-three he was digging at Eleusis, and his explorations he continued, in the intervals of his work as sub-librarian at the Institute (1862-72), and professor of Archaeology at the Bibliothèque Nationale (1874-83), until his robust health finally broke down in Calabria from sheer over-work, together with the effects of a wound received when serving as a volunteer during the siege of Paris. He returned to Paris to die—a true martyr to science—December 9, 1883. Perhaps there was never a scholar who gained laurels from so many fields as Lenormant, and certainly no man ever brought to the study of the past a greater combination of exhaustive learning, wide grasp of detail, and brilliant intuition, with unwearying enthusiasm and luminous power of exposition. From numismatics and archaeology proper he passed perhaps too easily to Assyriology, comparative philology, ancient history, and biblical antiquities; still, he has left behind works of the greatest interest and value in these widely different fields. His divination rather than discovery of the existence of a non-Semitic element in the language of the cuneiform inscriptions—the Accadian—was perhaps his greatest contribution to science, but it would be difficult to overpraise his essay on the propagation of the Phœnician alphabet, and his great and brilliant constructive work—one of the best attempts ever made to buttress the historical value of the early books of the Bible—Les Origines de l'Histoire d'après la Bible (3 vols. 1880-84).
Other works are Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne de l'Orient (3 vols. 1868-69; 9th ed. 1881, with a 4th vol. by Babelon, 1885); Lettres Assyriologiques (5 vols. 1871-79); Les Premières Civilisations (2 vols. 1874); Les Sciences Occultes en Asie (2 vols. 1874-75); La Monnaie dans l'Antiquité (3 vols. 1878-79); Monnaies et Médailles (1883); and La Grande Grèce (3 vols. 1881-84) and A travers l'Apulie et la Lucanie (2 vols. 1883).