Granger (Tourtechot)
Encyclopedia
Granger was a French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 and traveller, with a major interest in natural history
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

.

According to the preface of the only work attributed to him, his real name was Tourtechot, and for reasons not explained he changed it to Granger. Granger or Tourtechot is presumably his surname. Sometimes he is listed as Nicolas Granger, Tourtechot (de) Granger, or N. Granger.

In the 1720s he worked as a physician in a Christian hospital in Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....

, a position he acquired on account of his friend Jean Pierre Pignon, the French consul in Tunis at that time. Moving back to France in 1728, he accompanied Dignon to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

 in 1731, when Pignon was assigned French Consul in Cairo. During his stay in Egypt, Granger travelled up the Nile to Aswan
Aswan
Aswan , formerly spelled Assuan, is a city in the south of Egypt, the capital of the Aswan Governorate.It stands on the east bank of the Nile at the first cataract and is a busy market and tourist centre...

, documenting a large number of ancient monuments, as well as a considerable amount of its natural history, including animals, plants and minerals.
On his return from Egypt in 1732, Granger received a commission from King Louis XV of France
Louis XV of France
Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...

, to travel around the Middle East and acquire any kind of information that could help advance the knowledge of natural history in general. Leaving France in 1733 he managed to visit Crete
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

, Egypt again, Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

, Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

 and Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

, but died en route toward Persian, two days march from Basra.

Grangers account and notes was published in French in 1745, in German 1751 and in English 1773. The flower Grangeria of the family Chrysobalanaceae
Chrysobalanaceae
Chrysobalanaceae is a family of trees, shrubs and flowering plants, consisting of 17 genera and about 460 species of leptocaul that grows in the Tropics or is subtropical and common in the Americas...

is named after him.

Works

  • Relation du voyage fait en Egypte, par le sieur Granger, en l'année 1730. Où l'on voit ce qu'il y a de plus remarquable, particulièrement sur l'histoire naturelle, Paris, Jacques Vincent, 1745.
  • (German trans.) Des Herrn Grangers Beschreibung seiner in dem Jahre 1730 durch Egypten gethanen Reise, vorin das merkvurdigste in diesem Lande, insonderheit was die Naturgeschichte betrifft, beschrieben ist. – published in Sammlung aller Reisen, Gottingen, 1751, Theil III, pp. 307-428
  • (English trans.) A Journey through Egypt made in the year 1730, in which there are to be found the most remarkable particulars on Natural History. Translated from the French by John Reinhold Forster, London, 1773.
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