Paul Lucas

Paul Lucas (born August 31, 1664 in Rouen ; † May 12, 1737 in Madrid ) was a French merchant , explorer and archeologist in the service of Louis XIV. He made three extensive trips to Egypt and the Near East .

Life

Like his contemporary, Jean Chardin , a traveler to the Orient , Lucas may have originally been a jeweler . At least there was a family of goldsmiths of that name in Paris at the time . He is said to have started traveling when he was young, and some claim that he began his career as a corsair . In any case, he took part in the siege of Negroponte in 1688 in Venetian service . In 1696 he returned to France with a large collection of medals and other antiques, which he sold to the royal collection. With this, he gained the favor of the court and was subsequently sent out three times to procure further finds and manuscripts. His colorful and piquant travelogues often border on the fairy tale, but this was tempered by the learned quotations and the classic education of his editors.

From June 1699 to July 1703 he toured Egypt, Cyprus , Persia and Syria . He was the first European to gain more precise knowledge of the course of the Nile between Cairo and the cataracts, and came to Thebes (albeit without recognizing the ancient site). The second trip took him from October 1704 to September 1708 through Greece , Macedonia , Turkey , and via Palestine (where he made a description of Jerusalem ) to North Africa (here he collected material for the history of Tunis ). In 1714 Lucas was appointed royal antiquarian ( antiquaire du roi ). Between 1714 and 1717 he visited Istanbul , Syria, Palestine and Egypt again.

Works

• Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas au Levant. On y trouvera entr'autre une description de la haute Égypte, suivant le cours du Nil, depuis le Caire jusques aux Cataractes, avec une Carte exacte de ce fleuve, que personne n'avoit donné . Paris, Guillaume Vandive , 1704, 2 vol.
• Voyage de Sieur Paul Lucas, fait par ordre du Roi dans la Grèce, l'Asie Mineure, la Macédoine et l'Afrique . Nicolas Simart, Paris, 1712, 2 vol.
• Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas, fait en 1714 [...] dans la Turquie, l'Asie, la Syrie, la Palestine, la Haute et la bass Égpte, etc . Rouen, R. Machuel le jeune, 1719, 3 vol.

literature

• New edition with notes and an introduction by Henri Duranton: Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas dans le Levant . University of Saint-Etienne, 1998.
• Dirk van der Cruysse: Le noble désir de courir le monde. Voyager en Asie au XVIème siècle . Paris, Fayard, 2002.