James Bruce

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James Bruce
Bruce's map of the sources of the Nile

James Bruce of Kinnaird (born December 14, 1730 in Kinnaird , County of Stirling in Scotland , † April 27, 1794 ibid) was a Scottish scientist and traveler. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " Bruce ". James Bruce was a noticeable figure (1.93 m). He spoke eleven languages, was a geographer, astronomer, historian, linguist, botanist, ornithologist and cartographer. He also knew his way around medicine.

Live and act

Bruce came from an old Scottish noble family from the county of Stirlingshire . He received his education in Harrow and Edinburgh , where he also studied law from 1747 to 1750 without completing his studies. He then worked for a London wine merchant, whose daughter he married in 1754. The woman died in Paris the following year. Bruce then gave up his job and began to travel. He visited Portugal and Spain, among others, devoted himself to mathematical and astronomical studies and began to learn Arabic and ancient Ethiopian .

When his father died in 1758, Bruce became the sole heir to the extensive family estates, which also contained lucrative coal deposits. But instead of retiring to his land, in 1762 he accepted a position as consul at the Bey of Algiers . The post was also associated with the task of documenting ancient buildings in North Africa and the Middle East. Before leaving for Algiers, he spent almost a year studying antiquity in Italy. Here he took the draftsman and architect Luigi Balugani into his service, who from then on accompanied him on his travels for years. Bruce only performed the actual diplomatic service from 1763 to 1765, and here, too, he was mainly concerned with learning other African languages. In addition, he acquired a profound medical knowledge from the royal surgeon in Algiers, which he would find extremely useful during his later travels. From 1765 to 1768 Bruce fulfilled the second part of his assignment. He made trips to Tunisia , the Aurès Mountains, Tripolitania , the Cyrenaica and Benghazi . Then it went via Crete and Rhodes to the Levant . From Sidon and Aleppo , Bruce visited the monuments in Byblos , Baalbek and Palmyra . He and Balugani made documentary drawings of the ancient sites that Bruce donated to the Royal Library at Kew .

In June 1768 in Alexandria he began preparations for his great journey to the sources of the Nile . With the support of the Mamluk ruler Ali Bey al-Kabir , he traveled z. Some of them disguised as a Turk and followed the course of the Nile upstream. His expedition ended in 1773. Bruce visited Thebes and the Valley of the Kings , where he drew some reliefs . His drawings from the grave of Ramses III became particularly well known . which at the time was open but not documented. Henceforth this grave was called Bruce's grave . He traveled on to Aswan , returned to Qena and traveled in a caravan to Kosseir on the Red Sea . As a Turkish seaman, he crossed to Jeddah in May 1769 and stayed in Arabia for a few months . In September he took the ship to Massaua . From there he set out for Abyssinia . His journey took him via Aksum and Sire, from there south through the Atbara river system to Gondar , the then capital of Abyssinia, where he arrived in February 1770.

In Gondar he caused quite a stir because of his height, his self-assured demeanor and his command of the local Amharic language . He gained great reputation in treating the disease at the onset of the leaflets . The Ethiopian Emperor Tekle Haymanot II took him into his service. He stayed in Ethiopia for over three years , visiting the sources of the eastern arm of the Nile and circling Lake Tana . He claimed the sources were first discovered, even though they were discovered by the Portuguese priest Pedro Páez in 1618 and visited and described by the Portuguese priest Jerónimo Lobo in 1622 . James Bruce doubted their reports, however, because they had not measured the exact point using astronomical devices and their reports also contained exaggerations. In 1772 he set out on his return journey. It led him west to the Blue Nile and from there downstream via Schandi to the 5th cataract, where he branched off onto the caravan route through the Nubian desert . From water point to water point we went north to Aswan . He continued his journey by ship to Alexandria , where he arrived in 1773.

Finally, after an absence of eleven years, he returned to Scotland, where a heated controversy soon developed over his travels. While his opponents, with reference to Páez, doubted his discoveries at Lake Tana, Bruce tried to prove that the Jesuit was wrong. It was not until 17 years after his return that he published his main work, Travels to discover the sources of the Nile . 5 vols. (Edinburgh 1790). The egocentric, at the same time lively and subjective impact, in turn, contributed to the suspicious acceptance of the entire work before its scientific value was recognized. The Ethiopian manuscripts, including the Book of Enoch , and the Codex Brucianus named after him , which Bruce had brought with him, opened up new perspectives for the study of Gnosis and the Ethiopian languages ​​and placed this branch of Oriental Studies on a broader basis.

James Bruce died on April 27, 1794 in his hometown of Kinnaird.

Honors

1776 Bruce was elected as a member (" Fellow ") in the Royal Society . The genus Brucea J.F.Mill. the plant family of the bitter ash family (Simaroubaceae).

plant

  • Trips to discover the sources of the Nile. Translated by Johann Jacob Volkmann, 5 volumes, Weidmann, Leipzig 1790–1791 ( urn : nbn: de: hbz: 6: 1-12691 ).

literature

Web links

Commons : James Bruce (explorer)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Balugani died of a fever in Gondar in 1771.
  2. ↑ Gerhard Konzelmann : The Nile - holy river under sun barge, cross and crescent moon. dtv, Munich 1985, pp. 210-220.
personal data
SURNAME Bruce, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bruce of Kinnaird, James (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish naturalist and traveler
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1730
PLACE OF BIRTH Kinnaird , County Stirling , Scotland
DATE OF DEATH April 27, 1794
Place of death Kinnaird , County Stirling , Scotland