Jaroslav Černý was born on 22 August 1898 in Plzeň in Austria-Hungary (currently the Czech Republic).
He studied from 1917 till 1922 at Charles University, where he received his doctorate in 1922, and his post-doctoral Habilitation in 1929.
[1] He took part in Bernard Bruyère's excavations at Deir el-Medina from 1925 to 1970 and the village became the focus of a lifelong study.
[2] He was sponsored by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk from 1927, and worked with Alan Henderson Gardiner from 1934.
He spent the Second World War in Cairo and London, from 1942 as an employee of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs.