Johann Ludwig Burckhardt

Jean Louis Burckhardt ( * November 24, 1784 in Lausanne, † October 15, 1817 in Cairo ) was a Swiss traveler Orient. He is also known under the names Johann Ludwig and John Lewis, but even used the French name. His pseudonym was Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah. In the annals of history, he was one of him because of his meticulously documented discoveries: the Nabatean city of Petra in southern Jordan and the Nubian temple of Abu Simbel in Egypt.

Life

Burckhardt came of an old patrician family from Basel. After the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, his father, Johann Rudolf Burckhardt moved, to his estate in Gelterkinden. Jean Louis Burckhardt studied in Leipzig and Göttingen in 1805 and returned back to Basel, where he, however, had no good career prospect because of his anti-French attitude. So he traveled in 1806 with a letter of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach to London where the African Association, which he joined two years later to visit. By the Company, he was commissioned an expedition to the Niger. To prepare yourself physically from Burckhardt cured, studied Arabic at Cambridge and attended lectures in astronomy, medicine, chemistry and mineralogy. The company finally gave him the leadership of the expedition and Burckhardt embarked on February 14, 1809 to Malta one.

Burckhardt went to Aleppo (Syria ) to study the Middle East and Islam. He refined his knowledge of Arabic and gave himself under the pseudonym Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah as a Muslim merchant from. His accent in the pronunciation of Arabic, he established the fact that he was from India. In Aleppo, he translated the novel Robinson Crusoe into Arabic. According to his own statements, he participated in the Islamic faith. In the following years Burckhardt explored under its Arabic name, Palmyra, Damascus and Lebanon as well as holy places of Islam. In 1812 he went east of the Dead Sea passing through the Sinai Peninsula to Cairo. Provided with a letter of protection of the Egyptian viceroy Muhammad Ali Pasha, he followed up the Nile to the Nubian place Dongola. On August 22, 1812, he discovered the city of Petra ( from a European perspective ) again.

In 1814 he made ​​a second trip to Nubia and came about after Shendi and Berber with a camel caravan on Taka ( Kassala) to Suakin on the Red Sea. In the Nubian Desert, he discovered the sunken temple of Abu Simbel again. From the Red Sea, he went to the other side to Jeddah and Mecca. He was next to Domingo Badía y Leblich probably for hundreds of years, the first European who got the cities of Petra and Mecca to face. Between September and November 1814, he stayed in Mecca and also took part in the Hajj. Due to attacks of fever and dysentery he had to stay in Medina until April 1815. Not cured he arrived in the spring of 1816 to return to Egypt and took another trip to the peninsula of Sinai.

Burckhardt waited in Cairo long time for an opportunity like Friedrich Conrad Hornemann to travel with the Fezzan caravan to pass through on the Trans-Saharan route via Mursuk, Timbuktu and Bornu the continent. When finally wanted to form a caravan to Fezzan, he fell ill on October 4, 1817 again at the Ruhr as a result of poisoning. He died on 15 October in Cairo. Burckhardt was buried at his own request under an Arab name on a Muslim cemetery. His grave is still preserved.

In his will he bequeathed his writings, which include 350 tapes, the library of the University of Cambridge. A few of them were published posthumously. His diary was published in 1822 under the title Travels in Syria and the Holy Land in London.

Honors

A 1857 created by Ferdinand Schlöth memorial bust in marble is located in the auditorium of the Museum at the Augustiner street in Basel.

Works

  • Travels in Nubia. London 1819 eBooks @ Adelaide 2004
  • Johann Ludwig Burckhardt 's Travels in Nubia. New library of the most important travel accounts for the expansion of the ground and Ethnology, Volume 24, published by the Grand Duchy of Saxony priv Landes-Industrie - Comptoirs, Weimar, 1820. (Online at ALO).
  • Travels in Syria and the Holy Land. London 1822 eBooks @ Adelaide 2004
  • - Wilhelm Gesenius (ed.): Johann Ludwig Burkhardt 's Travels in Syria, Palestine, and the area of Mount Sinai. Volume 1 New Library of the most important travel accounts for the expansion of the ground and Ethnology, Volume 34 Publisher of the Grand Duchy of Saxony priv Landes-Industrie - Comptoirs, Weimar 1823. (Online at ALO).
  • - Wilhelm Gesenius (ed.): Johann Ludwig Burkhardt 's Travels in Syria, Palestine, and the area of Mount Sinai. Volume 2 New Library of the most important travel accounts for the expansion of the earth and Ethnology, Volume 38 Publisher of the Grand Duchy of Saxony priv Landes-Industrie - Comptoirs, Weimar 1824. (Online at ALO).
  • Travels in Arabia. London 1829 eBooks @ Adelaide 2004
  • Johann Ludwig Burckhardt 's Travels in Arabia, including a description of the areas in Hedjaz which the Mohammedans respect for holy. New library of the most important travel accounts for the expansion of the ground and Ethnology, Volume 54 Publisher of the Grand Duchy of Saxony priv Landes-Industrie - Comptoirs, Weimar, 1830. (Online at ALO).
  • Notes on the Bedouins and the Wahabys. London 1830
  • Remarks on the Bedouins and Wahabys, collected during his travels in the East. New library of the most important travel accounts for the expansion of the ground and Ethnology, Volume 57 Publisher of the Grand Duchy of Saxony priv Landes-Industrie - Comptoirs, Weimar 1831st ( online at ALO).
  • Arabic proverbs. London 1831
Abu Simbel temples Near East Berber, Sudan Friedrich Hornemann Bornu Empire Austrian Literature Online Neue Deutsche Biographie Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie Docudrama Robert Atzorn TagesWoche Integrated Authority File
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