Traunecker, Claude

French Egyptologist. He was born on 14 November 1943 in Mulhouse, France. He began his professional life as a chemical technician, working for a decade in the textile chemistry industry while nurturing a passion for ancient Egypt sparked during his childhood. He transitioned to academic Egyptology through the mentorship initially of Jean Leclant, then director of the Egyptology Institute at the University of Strasbourg, and later that of Philippe Derchain, Leclant's successor. In 1968, having participated in the Belgian excavations at Elkab the previous year, he was offered the position of on-site chemist at the newly founded Centre Franco-Égyptien d'Étude des Temples de Karnak (CFEETK) by its co-director Serge Sauneron. He spent 16 years at the Centre, during which time he prepared his doctorate in Egyptology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (defended in 1980), under the guidance of Jean Yoyotte. In 1984 he became a research officer at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and left the Karnak Centre. He then held teaching positions at the École du Louvre and the University of Louvain, before taking up the Chair of Egyptology at University of Strasbourg in 1997, which he held until his retirement in 2007.

• Traunecker, Claude 2023. Biographie des souvenirs: de le chimie à l'égyptologie. 'Un parcours'. In Colin, Frédéric, Sylvie Donnat, Françoise Laroche-Traunecker, and Isabelle Régen (eds), Au-delà de Karnak: recueil d'études offert à Claude Traunecker, 17-19. Cahiers "Égypte Nilotique et Méditerranéenne" 35. Montpellier; Paris: CNRS - Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3; Khéops.