Born in Lambersart, Nord, Vercoutter attended the Académie Julian to learn about painting, but soon turned to Egyptology. In 1939, he graduated from the IVe section of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes with a thesis on ancient Egyptian funerary objects and was appointed resident of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology of Cairo. He participated in excavations in Karnak and directed an excavation in Tod. Upon his return to France, he joined CNRS. During all these years, he pursued research on the relationship between Egyptians and pre-Hellenes, providing some firm conclusions on the relationship between these two great civilizations and the history of the ancient Aegean world. He was appointed professor at the University of Lille in 1960 and was one of the pioneers in archaeological research into Sudan. Between 1960 and 1964, he concentrated on studying Kor and Aksha, where he had been working in part since 1953, as they were threatened by the construction of the new Aswan Dam. He excavated structures such as the temple of Ramesses II, a Meroitic cemetery, as well as other small cemeteries. Vercoutter also excavated at the site of Saï. He was Director of the Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale from 1977 to 1981. Until his death in 2000 he was still active in the subject, publishing Les barrages pharaoniques. Leur raison d'être in 1994. He is the author of Découvertes Gallimard#À la recherche de l'Égypte oubliée, first volume of the collection “Découvertes Gallimard”, which was a bestseller in France, it has been translated into 22 languages and often reprinted.
With Ch. Desroches Noblecourt, Un siècle de fouilles françaises en Égypte 1880-1980, à l'occasion du centenaire de l'école du Caire, musée du Louvre, musée d'art et d'essai, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 21 mai / 15 octobre 1981, IFAO, Le Caire, 1981.
Essai sur les relations entre Égyptiens et pré-hellènes, n°6, L'orient ancien illustré, A. Maisonneuve, Paris, 1954.
L'Égypte et le monde égéen pré-hellénique, étude critique des sources Égyptiennes du début de la Dynastie égyptienne XVIIIe à la fin de la XIXe dynastie égyptienne, n° 22, BdE, IFAO, Le Caire, 1956.
L'Égypte et la vallée du Nil, des origines à la fin de l'ancien empire 12000-2000 Av. J.-C., Nouvelle Clio, PUF, Paris, 1992.
*Translated into Russian by Nina Zhivlova and Ivan Bogdanov – Египет и долина Нила, с древнейших времен до конца Древнего царства. 12000-2000 гг. до н.э. СПб.: Нестор-История, 2015.
Le déchiffrement des hiéroglyphes égyptiens 1680-1840, pp. 579–586, The Intellectual Heritage of Egypt, Budapest, 1992.
La fin de l'Ancien Empire : un nouvel examen, Vol. 2, pp. 557–562, Atti del VI Congresso Internazionale di Egittologia, Turin, 1993.
Les barrages pharaoniques. Leur raison d'être, pp. 315–326, Les problèmes institutionnels de l'eau en Égypte ancienne et dans l'Antiquité méditerranéenne, IFAO, Le Caire, 1994.
Étude des techniques de construction dans l'Égypte ancienne, 3, la décoration des parois, son principe et les dangers d'équivoques qu'elle peut entraîner en ce qui concerne la datation des édifices, MGEM, IFAO, Le Caire, 1985.
