Charles-Joseph Tissot

Charles-Joseph Tissot (also known as Charles Tissot) was a French diplomat and archaeologist, a pioneer in the exploration of ancient North Africa. He was born on 29 August 1828 in Paris and died there on 2 July 1884. Tissot's father, a lawyer and aggregated professor of philosophy, chose to teach this subject in Bourges and later in Dijon, and also taking charge of his son's education. Charles Tissot learned English, German, Spanish, Latin, Greek, as well as drawing through this upbringing. he became a consul student in Tunis in 1852. He married in this city to Valentine-Marie-Caroline Thomas in 1854 and learned Arabic there. His encounter with the archaeologist and chaplain of Saint-Louis-de-Carthage, Abbot Bourgade, influenced his archaeological vocation. then to London, elected as a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1880), Tissot refused to follow the advice of Salomon Reinach and to entrust the exploration of Tunisia to the students of the École française de Rome. Nevertheless, he became Reinach's collaborator and developed with him the Géographie comparée de la province romaine d'Afrique (Comparative Geography of the Roman Province of Africa). but died suddenly at his residence, in the 6th arrondissement of Paris on 2 July 1884.

Publications Des proxénies grecques et leur analogie avec les institutions consulaires, 1863. De Tritonide lacu, 1863. Recherches sur la géographie comparée de la Maurétanie tingitane, Comptes rendus de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 1877. Le Bassin du Bagrada et la voie romaine de Carthage à Hippone par Bulla Regia, 1881. Recherches sur la campagne de César en Afrique, 1884. Exploration scientifique de la Tunisie: Géographie comparée de la province romaine d’Afrique, 2 vols. and an atlas, 1884–1891. Fastes de la province romaine d'Afrique, with S. Reinach, 1885.

A portion of Charles-Joseph Tissot's archives is preserved at the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art.