Henri Mouhot

Henri Mouhot drawn by H. Rousseau after a photograph

Mouhot's tomb on the riverside near Luang Prabang

Alexandre Henri Mouhot (born May 15, 1826 in Montbéliard , France , † October / November 1861 at Luang Prabang in Laos ) was a French naturalist and explorer.

Live and act

Mouhot left on April 27, 1858 London to Siam , Cambodia and Laos to travel. In January 1860 he reached Angkor , where he made a number of sketches and drawings.

In 1868 the illustrated travelogue Voyage à Siam et dans le Cambodge was published posthumously , through which the temples of Angkor first attracted the attention of the general public in Europe.

Mouhot is often referred to as the discoverer of Angkor, a claim that he himself never made and that does not correspond to the facts, since Portuguese travelers had already reached the place in the 16th century and some missionaries had been there before him. In his book he himself quoted expressly from the report of the French missionary Charles Émile Bouillevaux , who had visited the temples years before him and reported about them. The Khmer always knew of the existence of the ancient temples and used some, like Angkor Wat , for religious rites at all times.

Mouhot died of malaria while exploring the Luang Prabang area. When the French consul Auguste Pavie came across his badly preserved tombstone in 1887, he had a new tombstone erected on the same spot on the banks of the Nam Khan near the city. This was only rediscovered in the jungle in 1990.

Works

• Henri Mouhot: Travels in Siam, Cambodia, Laos, and Annam. Reprint, White Lotus, Bangkok 2000, 2009. ISBN 974-8434-03-6

literature

• Christopher Pym (Ed.): Henri Mouhot's Diary . Oxford University Press, Kuala Lumpur 1966.
• N / A : The French in Indo-China . Nelson and sons, Edinburg, New York 1884, pp. 176–208 (pdf reprint pp. 43–53)

Web links

Commons : Henri Mouhot  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Dawn F. Rooney: In the footsteps of Henry Mouhot. A French explorer in 19th Century Thailand, Cambodia and Laos , from the Rooney Archives website, accessed May 1, 2017