Jean-François Jarrige

Biography

Jean-François Marie Charles Jarrige was born on 5 August 1940 in Lourdes, Hautes-Pyrénées, France. He studied at the École du Louvre where he was classmates with future-French president Jacques Chirac.

Jarrige was a specialist in Asian archeology, particularly South Asian, as was his wife, Catherine. The couple were responsible for the discovery in 1974 of the Neolithic settlement of Mehrgarh in Baluchistan, which they and their team excavated continuously from then until 1986.

Jarrige was the director of the Musée Guimet from 1986 until 2004, when he was made museum president. He directed a major overhaul of the museum's collection in 2000–2001, reorganizing according to place and time period. As part of his role with the museum, he was also the curator general of special expositions, such as the “Afghanistan: A Thousand Year-Old History” (Barcelona-Paris-Houston, 2001–2002) and "Afghanistan: Treasures Found in the Kabul Museum ”(December 2006 - April 2007) which featured finds from the Tillya Tepe site. He retired from the position in 2008.

His wife Catherine was also an archaeologist who worked with him on several sites. The couple had two daughters. Jarrige died 18 November 2014 in Paris following a long battle with stomach cancer.