Johann Ludwig (also known as
John Lewis,
Jean Louis)
Burckhardt (November 24, 1784 - October 15, 1817) was a
SwissSwitzerland , officially the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 states named cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities...
traveller and orientalist. He wrote his letters in
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
and signed
Louis .
Youth and early travels
Burckhardt was born in
LausanneLausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, situated on the shores of Lake Geneva , and facing Évian-les-Bains and with the Jura mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located some northeast of Geneva. It is the capital of the canton of Vaud and of the district of...
.
After studying in
LeipzigLeipzig is, with a population of 515,459, the largest city in the federal state of Saxony, Germany.-Origins:Leipzig's name is derived from the Slavic word Lipsk, which means "settlement where the lime trees stand"....
and at the University of Göttingen he visited
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in the summer of 1806, carrying a letter of introduction from the naturalist
Johann Friedrich BlumenbachJohann Friedrich Blumenbach was a German physician, physiologist and anthropologist, one of the first to explore the study of mankind as an aspect of natural history, whose teachings in comparative anatomy were applied to classification of human races, of which he determined...
to Sir
Joseph BanksSir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was a British naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa, and the genus named after him, Banksia...
, who, with the other members of the
African AssociationThe Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa , founded in London on June 9 1788, was a British club dedicated to the exploration of West Africa, with the mission of discovering the origin and course of the Niger River and the location of Timbuktu, the "lost city" of...
, accepted his offer in 1809 to launch an expedition to discover the source of the River Niger. Upon acceptance Burckhardt planned to travel to the Levant in order to study Arabic, in the belief that his journey to Africa would be facilitated if he was accepted to be as a
Muslim:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits ". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah...
.
As preparation Burckhardt briefly studied Arabic at the
University of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge , located in the City of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, is the second oldest university in the English-speaking world and the fourth oldest in Europe...
, and prepared for his rigorous career as an explorer by wandering bareheaded in the English countryside during a heatwave, subsisting on vegetables and water, and sleeping on the bare ground.
Burckhardt left England in March 1809 for
MaltaMalta , officially the Republic of Malta , is a densely populated developed European country in the European Union. The Southern European island nation is an archipelago that includes the inhabited islands of Malta, Gozo and Comino, along with a number of smaller, uninhabited islands...
, whence he proceeded, in the following autumn, to
AleppoAleppo is a city in northern Syria, the second largest Syrian city and the capital of the Aleppo Governorate; the Governorate extends around the city for over 16,000 km² and has a population of 4,393,000, making it the largest Governorate in Syria by population...
,
SyriaSyria , 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....
in order to perfect his Arabic and study Islamic Law.
In order to obtain a better knowledge of oriental life he disguised himself as a
Muslim:A Muslim , , is an adherent of the religion of Islam. The feminine form is Muslimah . Literally, the word means "one who submits ". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. Muslims believe that there is only one God, translated in Arabic as Allah...
, and took the name of Sheikh Ibrahim Ibn Abdallah. There is some indication that his conversion to
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
may have been sincere, although his family denies this.
After two years passed in the
LevantThe Levant describes, traditionally, the Eastern Mediterranean at large, but can be used as a geographical term that denotes a large area in Western Asia formed by the lands bordering the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, roughly bounded on the north by the Taurus Mountains, on the south by...
he had thoroughly mastered Arabic, and had acquired such accurate knowledge of the
Qur'anThe Qur’an is the central religious text of Islam...
, and of the commentaries upon its religion and laws, that after a critical examination the most learned Muslims entertained no doubt of his being really what he professed to be, a learned doctor of their law.
Discoveries and death
During his residence in
SyriaSyria , 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....
, Burckhardt visited
PalmyraPalmyra was in ancient times an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus and 120 km southwest of the Euphrates. It has long been a vital caravan city for travellers crossing the Syrian desert and was known as the Bride of the Desert...
,
DamascusDamascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world and its current population is estimated at about 1,669,000...
,
LebanonLebanon , officially the Republic of Lebanon
[Republic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies...]
and made a series of other exploratory trips in the region. One of these trips, in what is now modern-day Jordan, resulted in his 'discovery' of the extensive and unique ruins of
PetraPetra is an archaeological site in the Arabah, Ma'an Governorate, Jordan, lying on the slope of Mount Hor in a basin among the mountains which form the eastern flank of Arabah , the large valley running from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba. It is renowned for its rock-cut architecture...
which had been undiscovered for nearly a millennium. Unsatisfied with the magnitude of this discovery he was determined to carry on with his original aim to uncover the source of the River Niger. Thus he in 1812 went to
CairoCairo is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab World. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a center of the region's political and cultural life...
with the intention of joining a caravan to
FezzanFezzan is a south-western region of modern Libya. It is largely desert but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys in the north, where oases enable ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise inhospitable Sahara.- Administrative division :Fezzan was formerly a province...
, in Libya.
Burckhardt temporarily abandoned this goal to travel up the
NileThe Nile is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world....
as far as Dar Mahass; and then, finding it impossible to penetrate westward, he made a journey through the Nubian desert in the character of a poor Syrian merchant, passing by
BerberBerber is a town in the Nile state of northern Sudan, 50 km north of Atbara, near the junction of the Atbara River and the Nile.The town was the starting-point of the old caravan route across the Nubian Desert to the Red Sea at Suakin....
and
ShendiShendi or Shandi is a town in northern Sudan, situated on the east bank of the Nile 150 km northeast of Khartoum. Shandi is also about 45 km southwest of the ancient city of Meroe. Located in the River Nile wilayah, Shandi is the center of the Ja'aliin tribe and an important historic trading...
to
SuakinSuakin or Sawakin is a port in north-eastern Sudan, on the west coast of the Red Sea. In 1983 it had a population of 18,030 and the 2009 estimate is 43, 337.It was formerly the region's chief port, but is now secondary to Port Sudan, about 30 miles north. The old city built of coral is in ruins...
, on the
Red SeaThe Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez,...
, whence he performed the pilgrimage to Mecca by way of Jidda. At
MeccaMecca , sometimes spelled Makkah is the holiest meeting site of the Islamic religion. The city is modern, cosmopolitan and whilst being closed to non-Muslims is nonetheless ethnically diverse.Islamic tradition attributes the beginning of Mecca to Ishmael's descendants...
he stayed three months and afterwards visited
MedinaMedina is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province...
.
After enduring privations and sufferings of the severest kind, he returned to Cairo in June 1815 in a state of great exhaustion; but in the spring of 1816 he travelled to
Mount SinaiMount Sinai , also known as Mount Horeb, Mount Musa, Gabal Musa , Jabal Musa by the Bedouin, is the name of a mountain in Saint Katherine city, in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt...
, whence he returned to Cairo in June, and there again made preparations for his intended journey to Fezzan. Several hindrances prevented his prosecuting this intention, and finally, in April 1817, when the long-expected caravan prepared to depart, he was seized by
dysenteryDysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the feces. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal....
and died on 15 October. He had from time to time carefully transmitted to England his journals and notes, and a copious series of letters, so very few details of his journeys have been lost. He bequeathed his collection of 800 vols. of oriental manuscripts to the library of Cambridge University.
In popular culture
Burckhardt was portrayed by Thomas Lockyer in the
2005The year 2005 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 2005.For the American TV schedule, see: 2005-06 United States network television schedule.-Events:* January 1 -**The U.S...
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation as the "BBC", is the longest established and largest broadcaster in the world...
docudrama
Egypt.
His publications
His works were posthumously published by the African Association in the following order:
- Travels in Nubia (to which is prefixed a biographical memoir) (1819)
- Travels in Syria and the Holy Land (1822)
- Travels in Arabia (1829)
- Arabic Proverbs, or the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1830)
- Notes on the Bedouin
The Bedouin, , are a predominantly desert-dwelling Arab ethnic group found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via the Western Desert, Sinai, and Negev to the Arabian Desert...
s and WahabysWahhabi or Wahhabism is a sect attributed to Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, an 18th century scholar from what is today known as Saudi Arabia, who advocated to purge Islam of what he considered innovations in Islam...
(1831).