Guillaume de Jerphanion, born at Pontevès in 1877, died in Rome on 22 October 1948,[1] was a French Jesuit, archaeologist and explorer of Cappadocia.

[citation needed] In 1903 Guillaume was sent to Tokat in Turkey to teach science to Armenian children in one of the numerous schools founded by the Jesuits in Anatolia.

Before returning to France to study theology and be ordained a priest, he traveled through Anatolia (Amasya - Ankara - Samsun - Sivas...) and discovered Cappadocia.

While taking care of the publication of his work on the rock-cut churches of Cappadocia, he was also in charge of closing most of the schools and houses that the Jesuits owned in the east of the country.

Guillaume de Jerphanion left Turkey for good in 1927 to become professor of Christian archeology at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.

In the 5 volumes that constitute the complete work, a whole series of monuments from different periods between the 9th and the 13th centuries, and mainly located in the Ürgüp region, are listed in a methodical and homogeneous manner.

At the end of the war the manuscripts and color plates left abandoned in a shed were found in poor condition, unusable, so that Guillaume de Jerphanion had to start all over again.