Hélène Cuvigny

Hélène Cuvigny is Research Director at the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) and a papyrologist specializing in the eastern Egyptian desert during the Roman period. For more than thirty years, beginning with the excavations at the quarry site of Mons Claudianus, Hélène Cuvigny has played a central role in the exploration of Egypt’s Eastern Desert. She has been deeply engaged with the systematic excavation and publication of the texts and other finds from a multitude of sites, including the quarries of the northern zone and the desert forts along the roads from Coptos (in the Nile valley) to the ports of Myos Hormos and Berenike (in the southern part of the desert), which facilitated the Roman Empire’s trade with Arabia, India, and East Africa. Professor Cuvigny is the lead investigator for the research program Ostraca of the Eastern Desert at the Institute of Papyrology of the Paris-Sorbonne University and continues to excavate and publish about the exploitation of the Eastern Desert under the Roman Empire.