eon Rey, French archaeologist, died in Paris. He was born in Faremoutiers, France, in 1887. He was the head of the French archaeological mission created on the basis of the Albanian-French Agreement of 1923, which obtained the concession of the right of archaeological excavations for a period of 30 years in the prefectures: Shkodër , Durres and Vlora. He did only limited surveys in Durrës. In 1924–1938 excavations were carried out in Apollonia, during which many monuments were discovered. Leon Rey made efforts to exhibit the discovered objects and to build a museum in Fier, but this project was not supported by the government of the time. In 1936, with the support of the patriots, the historic building where the national government was based after the Declaration of Independence in 1912, in Vlora, was turned into an archaeological museum. The results of excavations and other studies in the field of archaeology, history and art were published by Leon Rey and other collaborators in a special magazine “Albanie, Cahiers d’Archeologie, d’Histoire et d’Art en Albanie et dans les Balkans” (“Albania, notebooks of archaeology, history and art in Albania and the Balkans”), from which six numbers came out. He passed away in 1954. (In the photo: Leon Rej, in Apolloni.)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 3 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2009, page 2227.
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