Alexandre Varille

Alexandre Varille (12 March 1909, Lyon – 1 November 1951, Joigny) was a French Egyptologist.

Life

From a cultured family, he studied Economics and Letters. During his studies he met Victor Loret, his Egyptology professor at the University of Lyon, and followed him in his devotion to Egyptian philology and archaeology. Varille began working in Egypt in 1931 and the following year he was made a member of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale in Cairo.

In 1939 he excavated the gates of Ptolemy III and Ptolemy IV from the temple of Medamud, now in the Musée des beaux-arts in Lyon. In 1944 he was made taken on as an expert by the Service des Antiquités. He finally settled in Egypt and only returned to France for short periods. He died in a car accident in France in 1951.