Bruno Dagens


Bruno Dagens is a French archaeologist, art historian, Sanskritist, and a specialist on Angkor Wat. He is currently a professor emeritus of the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris 3.

Career

Dagens began to study archaeology in his early years in Afghanistan, influenced by Daniel Schlumberger. After his graduation in history and archaeology, as well as Sanskrit, he performed various internships with the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan. From 1957 to 1964, he participated in the excavations at Mundigak and Surkh Kotal and carried out research on the so-called Greco-Buddhist art. In 1964, he undertook the translation of Mayamata, a Sanskrit treatise on architecture. He obtained the CAPES of history and geography and taught from 1964 to 1965 in Obernai. Then he was seconded to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an expert for the Angkor Conservation from 1965 to 1969. He joined the École française d'Extrême-Orient in 1969, and remained in office for three years in Cambodia, while carrying out parallel missions in India, Thailand and Laos.
In Cambodia, Dagens conducted scientific activity in three topics: research on the iconography and architecture of monuments of the Angkorian period accompanied by systematic surveys; research on statuary, centered on the elaboration of a detailed catalogue of the Buddhist pieces from the sculpture depot of the Angkor Conservation; philological work on Mayamata, completed by monumental studies in Cambodia and India.
From 1972 to 1977, he had been a lecturer at the Université catholique de Louvain and regularly travelled to Pondicherry. In October 1977, he was appointed director of the Indology section at the French Institute of Pondicherry. During the period 1972 to 1986, his research focused on the texts and monuments of South India. He spent nine years in Pondicherry to study Shaivite temples and scriptures.
In 1986, he became Professor of Ancient History and Archaeology of South and Southeast Asia at the University of Paris III and has remained in that position since. He is also the director of the and responsible for EFEO programmes. His monograph Angkor : La forêt de pierre was published as Angkor: Heart of an Asian Empire in 1995, and has been adapted into a documentary film with the same title in 2002, as part of The Human Adventure. He has also done work dealing with the Khmer and the Indian temple – The Indian Temple: Mirror of the World, originally published in French in 2009.

Selected publications

; Translation