author
Delphine Menant
b. 1850
A French explorer and ethnologist, she is best remembered for her close study of Parsi communities in India and for writing about Zoroastrian life with unusual care and detail. Her work grew out of serious scholarship and first-hand travel at a time when very few women were doing this kind of field research.
3 Audiobooks
De monumenten van den Girnar De Aarde en haar Volken, 1907
by Delphine Menant
Bij de Parsi's van Bombay en Gudsjerat De Aarde en haar Volken, 1909-1910
by Delphine Menant
Les Parsis
by Delphine Menant
About the author
Born in Cherbourg in 1850, Delphine Menant was the daughter of the Assyriologist Joachim Menant and studied with the scholar James Darmesteter. She became known as a French ethnologist and Iranian scholar with a strong interest in Zoroastrian history and culture.
Her best-known work is Les Parsis, a study of the Parsi communities of India. In 1900 she traveled to India on a mission connected with the Musée Guimet, where she researched Parsi family life, customs, and religion through direct observation.
Menant's writing stands out for combining careful scholarship with a traveler’s eye for lived experience. For listeners interested in religion, history, and cross-cultural encounter, her work offers a vivid glimpse of the Parsi world as it was seen at the turn of the twentieth century.