This volume of twelve essays derives from a 2022 conference in Paris dedicated to the history of North African archaeology in the Maghreb and Egypt. It is the second set of proceedings published in the last several years to celebrate the opening to researchers of the rich archives of the Poinssot family, purchased by the Institut national d’Histoire de l’Art in 2005, along with their library, acquired by the Gernet-Glotz library in 2006. In recognition of the importance to scholars of the now accessible correspondence of three generations of well-connected and influential Poinssots, Julien (d. 1900), Louis (d. 1967) and Claude (d. 2002), the contributors to this collection provide snapshots of various aspects of colonial and imperial archaeological research in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century that have thereby been illuminated. Although some of the essays reveal a more direct connection to the Poinssot correspondence than others, all shed light on European involvement in North African archaeological and epigraphical activity in this period.

The conference proceedings helpfully open with the history and importance of the Poinssot archives co-authored by Meriem Sebaï and John Scheid, followed by Rachel Guidoni’s description of the holdings of the Gernet-Glotz library. Subsequent pieces are all case studies, the first of which is Thouraya Belkahia’s assessment of the legacy of the British excavator Nathan Davis in Carthage, who worked on behalf of the British Museum in the 1850s and whose career has previously been chronicled in depth by Joann Freed. Sarah Rey’s contribution focuses on the figure of Pierre Cayrel, then associated with the École française de Rome, who undertook exploration of the Ksar-el-Kelb in Algeria in the 1930s. Next in the volume is Delphine Acolat’s exploration of the shocking vandalism and depredation of mummified human and crocodile remains at the site of Maabdeh-Manfalout on the Nile in Egypt by British, French, Italian and American visitors from the mid-nineteenth century. Although such activities were allegedly conducted for scientific purposes, it is clear that many more mummies were destroyed than made their way into the collections of botanical and archaeological museums, where they were often left unstudied and gathering dust in their storerooms.

The next contributions turn back to Tunisia in the 1920s with two successive pieces highlighting the career of Francis Byron Khun de Prorok, by Antonella Mezzolani Andreose and by Meriem Sebaï. The former highlights the fantasy spun around the young ‘count’ and amateur excavator who undertook exploration of Carthage’s Tophet and romanticised his own image as a swashbuckling archaeologist. The second essay provides transcriptions of some of the key correspondence from Prorok drawn from the Poinssot archives and the diplomatic archives in Nantes. Turning back to French archaeological expeditions in Algeria, Patrick Blanc, Véronique Blanc-Bijon and Cécile Giroire reconstruct the events that led to Captain Adolphe Delamare’s execution of the delicate task of removing the Roman mosaic of Neptune and Amphitrite, among others, from Constantine, and its transfer first to Algiers and then later to the Louvre. In her piece, Zheira Kasdi writes about the French Arabist Auguste Cherbonneau and his contributions to the newly founded Société archéologique de Constantine. She points to some of his less well-known contributions to Latin epigraphy from the region of Constantine, which have traditionally been overshadowed by the better publicised work done on the Latin inscriptions found at Lambaesis in the 1850s by his contemporary Léon Renier.

In the last section of the book, Néjat Brahmi focuses on Henri Poisson de la Martinière, whose contributions included excavations at the Roman sites of Volubilis and Lixus in Morocco. It is clear that the explorer was not always welcomed to such sites, even when he had received permission from the sultan to travel and excavate (activities that apparently necessitated the extensive use of dynamite). In her essay, Monique Dondin-Payre focuses on the poorly known figure of Jules Chabassière, about whom it is possible to learn more on the basis of the Poinssot papers. Although the former French Zouave was accused by the German epigrapher Theodor Mommsen of having forged or poorly transcribed the inscription of Hiempsal (244), Dondin-Payre seeks to salvage his reputation by highlighting some of his contributions to archaeology in the region of Constantine. In the final chapter, Mohcin Cheddad writes about what the Spanish archives reveal about archaeological research undertaken in the Spanish Protectorate of northern Morocco between 1912 and 1956, and highlights the creation of an archaeological museum in Tétouan in 1940. While the volume lacks a conclusion, a list of abstracts may be found at the end.

Although there is much of interest in the volume, it is unfortunate that conference organisers chose to characterise the protagonists of archaeological activities as ‘adventurers’, an approach that glorifies European quarrying, indiscriminate destruction and confiscation of key pieces of the patrimony of North Africa in colonised regions. This framing fails to acknowledge critically the impact of ‘exploration’ on local populations and the limited scientific value of many of such undertakings. For instance, we learn that M. Duplan used an axe to break apart hundreds of mummies along the Nile to pillage scarabs and finger rings (60). Excavations often served to enhance the reputations and ambitions of the individuals who undertook them rather than advancing knowledge of the ancient past. We get glimpses of the bold entitlement of French explorers such as Poisson de la Martinière, who called locals hostile to his archaeological interventions ‘religious fanatics’ (217) and pistol-whipped the qadi who dared to complain about his butchering a calf without permission (218).

As has been demonstrated in recent years by scholars such as Nabila Oulebsir, Clémentine Gutron, Donald Reid, Elliot Colla, Wendy Doyon, Yannis Hamilakis and others, there is an ethical responsibility to avoid perpetuating heroic portraits of colonial archaeologists. Powers such as France, Britain, Spain and Italy sponsored their archaeological and epigraphical exploration in North Africa because it furthered their ideological, military and economic objectives and helped fill metropolitan museums with classical treasures. While some of the contributors to this volume gesture in this direction, clearer contextualisation of their pieces by the editors would have underlined the damage caused by the colonial apparatus that made these activities possible.