Ernest Théodore Hamy (1842-1908)

Ernest Théodore Hamy, a doctor and assistant to Paul Broca at the Muséum d'Histoire naturelle, was appointed a correspondent of the Commission de Topographie des Gaules in January 1877.

An anthropologist and founder of ethnography

In 1857, while still a teenager, Ernest Hamy accompanied his teacher, the canon Daniel Haigneré (1824-1893), on several archaeological excavations, in particular to the Merovingian sites at Pincthun. Following his medical studies, in 1869, Ernest Hamy became assistant to Paul Broca, founder of the Société d’anthropologie de Paris, and dedicated himself to anthropology. In 1872, he joined the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle as assistant naturalist and assistant to Armand de Quatrefages, who he succeeded in 1892. He was also interested in ethnography, to the extent that he is considered one of the founders of the discipline in France. He became the first curator of the Muséum ethnographique des missions scientifiques du Trocadéro, more commonly known as the Musée d’ethnographie du Trocadéro, when it opened in 1878.