GSELL, STÉPHANE. — Historian and archaeologist, born in Paris on 7 February 1864, died there on 1 January 1932. He was a student at the French School of Rome from 1886 to 1890. During this period (1889), he directed, using an excellent method, the excavations carried out at Vulci by the owner, Prince Giulio Torlonia, and published them in the collection of the Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome, Fouilles dans la nécropole de Vulci (Paris 1891).
Soon afterward, two valuable theses of his for the doctorate in letters appeared: Essai sur le règne de l'empereur Domitien (there 1893); and De Tipasa Mauretaniae Caesariensis urbe; this Latin dissertation, however, was immediately revised by G. in his study Tipasa, ville de la Maurétanie césarienne (in Mélanges d'archéol. et d'hist., 14 [1894], pp. 291-450); there, making use of the precise topographical indications contained in the Passio of the martyr Salsa, then being studied by Duchesne, he illustrated the basilica of that Saint, which he had identified. Tipasa is also treated in Recherches archéologiques en Algérie (Paris 1893) and in Promenades archéologiques aux environs d'Alger (there 1926).
His appointment as a lecturer at the Ecole supérieure des lettres d'Alger determined his devotion to Africa. The breadth and precision of his notes on the Christian monuments then coming to light in Algeria, which he studied immediately, constitute a model of clarity and precision, rarely equalled. Such are his Notes d'archéologie algérienne in the Bulletin du Comité, of 1899; the Chronique archéologique africaine of 1891; L'exploration archéologique dans le département de Constantine, in collaboration with H. Graillot, in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist., 13 (1893), pp. 461-541 and 14 (1894), pp. 17-86, 501-609, where his Chroniques africaines also appeared: 15 (1895), pp. 301-50; 16 (1896), pp. 441-90; 18 (1898), pp. 69-140; 19 (1899), pp. 35-83.
The two memoirs on the Edifices chrétiens de Thélepte and the Edifices chrétiens d'Ammaedara (Haidra) appeared in the Atti del II Congresso internazionale di archeologia cristiana of 1900 (Rome 1902, pp. 127-259); they were republished, as a tribute to his memory, with notes by A. Saumagne in the Revue tunisienne, 1932, pp. 5-56, 277-300, and separately in Tunis in 1933. Of capital importance in his Monuments antiques de l'Algérie (2 vols., Paris 1901) is the treatise included in vol. II, devoted to buildings of Christian worship (pp. 114-343), and anyone who undertook to update it, or better, to continue it, would deserve the highest praise.
The Atlas archéologique de l'Algérie (Paris-Algiers 1902-1911) presents 10,000 names in a two-column text of 510 folio pages. The accuracy of the information, despite its concision, shows with what scrupulousness G. had assiduously traversed the entire territory of Algeria, omitting even the smallest monumental remains. He also published the account of the Musée de Philippeville (Paris-Algiers 1898) and that of the Musée de Tebessa (there 1902). In 1916 his Textes relatifs à l'histoire de l'Afrique, I, Hérodote (there 1916) appeared. Meanwhile, following the plan already conceived at the time of the account of Tipasa, he prepared and published the Inscriptions latines de l'Algérie, I (Paris 1922). His study on Le christianisme en Oranie avant la conquête arabe, published in the Bulletin du cinquantenaire de la Société de géographie et d'archéologie de la province d'Oran, 1928, pp. 17-32, is noteworthy and synthetic. Also valuable is his treatment of La Tripolitaine et le Sahara au IIIe siècle, in Mémoires de l'Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres, Paris 1926. But G.'s truly monumental work is his Histoire ancienne de l'Afrique du Nord (8 vols., Paris 1913-28), which, because of his death, remained unfinished at the end of the Roman Republic.