Amiet's family left Alsace for Paris in 1939, and he studied at the École du Louvre and the Sorbonne.
[2] Upon his return from Samaria, he was married and later achieved his doctorate with a thesis titled La glyptique mésopotamienne archaïque.
[3] The thesis focused on iconographic evolution of the cylinder seal, and it was published in 1961.
[4] Amiet was a conservator at the Musée des beaux-arts de Chambéry from 1958 to 1961 and later held the same role at the Department of Near Eastern Antiquities of the Louvre [fr].
[5] After his time as a conservator, he taught at the École du Louvre,[6] and served as Inspector General of Museum of France.