Musée Guimet - Guimet research plan 2026-2030

Guimet research plan 2026 2030 15

Part 1 → The structuring axes of research at the Villa Guimet

Axis 2

Context

of création

Art history , as a discipline for interpreting the evolution of forms and contexts of

creation , is one of the scientif ic approaches adopted by museums and will be one

of the major axes of this research plan . While Western museums hold many Asian

works of art – whether ritualistic and religious objects , paintings , sculptures , textiles

or everyday objects , they cannot be fully understood without reference to their

original context .

Therefore , placing these works in their geographical , historical , social and cultural

" terrain " allows not only a better anthropological and historical understanding , but

also a critical ref lection on the circumstances of acquisition , conservation and

exhibition of these objects . This is fundamental to restore the meaning , function

and initial value of the art pieces .

This is why cooperation with French and international archaeological missions ,

historians , epigraphers and specialists is essential . They make it possible to

re - evaluate and transform the way we perceive , tell and transmit knowledge of

these objects in museums .

Musée d Ennery © musée Guimet Paris Vincent Leroux

New Technologies for

a revised chronology of

the Indo - Iranian frontiers

( 7000 to 2600 BCE )

The emergence of agropastoralism at the end of the 10th millennium BCE deeply

transformed the prehistoric societies of Southwest Asia . However , in the regions

between the Zagros Mountains ( Iran ) and the Indus Valley ( Pakistan ) , our

understanding of the spread of this way of life remains partial , due to the lack of set

chronological markers of the temporal links between settlements .

This project aims to f ill this gap by conducting a series of analyses on ceramic

samples from the ancient Mundigak and Amri levels , in particular by radiocarbon

dating ( C14 ) on lipid residues , and on samples from Mehrgarh and the Makran sites ,

preserved by the CNRS in Nanterre . This study of the ceramic material from the

Indo - Iranian borders , dated from 7000 to 2600 BCE , should also allow to establish

a comparison with the federal collections of Pakistan ( National Museum in Karachi )

and the corpuses of sherds kept by CNRS teams .

This research program is part of a partnership agreement with the Laboratory of

Archaeology and Sciences of Antiquity ( UMR 7041 – ArScan ) but also the Laboratory

of Climate and Environmental Sciences ( LSCE ) and the Maison de l ' Orient et de la

Méditerranée ( MOM ) . The funding for this project is provided by the European

Research Council ( ERC ) , under the title AGROCHRONO , for a budget of € 1 . 6 million

between 2025 and 2029 .

Understanding the trade routes

between China and Central Asia

( 5th century BCE – 5th century CE )

In the same process of understanding the interactions

between different geographical areas , the period

between the 5th century BCE and the 5th century saw

the structuring of vast empires in Central Asia

( Achaemenids , Seleucids , Kushana , Qin , then Han ) ,

remarkable for the intensity of their material and

commercial interactions . This is why the attention of

historians and archaeologists has been particularly

focused on these empires , as well as on the

manifestations within the elites of the multiculturalism

created by these exchanges Unfortunately the

peripheral areas passes high valleys deserts have

often been neglected with the exception of the

Taklamakan Desert in China and are therefore an

area to be explored Indeed the expansion of empires

implied a territorial anchorage to be built intellectually

and materially through diplomatic political and

religious means with control of trade and migration routes In addition the trade

networks and communication routes in the valleys of the Vakhsh Surkhob Kyzyl Su

the Zeravshan through the Pamirs north and south of the Taklamakan Desert to the

Gobi Desert are characterized by the presence of humans permanent or

intermittent in order to ensure control of a territory

As part of the ANR Imperial borderlands in Central Asia first results of the

archaeological surveys as part of the ANR FRONTIER project the archaeological

or prospecting missions conducted by the team of the ArScAn CNRS research

Belt Buckle in Steppe Style Northern China 1st 2nd century Gold Leaf Chased