Format:
1 Online-Ressource (xiv, 455 pages, [31] pages of plates)
,
illustrations (some color), maps
ISBN:
9789004236356
Series Statement:
Brill's studies in intellectual history v. 213
Content:
Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- 1. Family and Education -- 2. Constantinople—City of Rumours -- 3. Diplomacy and Intrigue -- 4. Travel in the East -- 5. War in Egypt -- 6. Mixing East and West -- 7. “The Sabre in One Hand and the Koran in the Other” -- 8. Return to Europe -- 9. To Constantinople and Back -- 10. “A Dangerous Man of Enlightenment” -- 11. The Roman Republic 1798–99 -- 12. Final Year in Sweden -- 13. “I Am Alive Only in Paris” -- 14. Åkerblad’s Rosetta Lettre -- 15. Geographic Competition -- 16. Egyptology and Orientalism -- 17. Book Thefts, Inkblots and French Expropriations -- 18. Antiquarian in Rome -- 19. Salons and Belle Amiche -- 20. Curses and Cabals -- 21. Oriental Rome -- 22. Archaeology and Art -- 23. French Defeat -- 24. Digging with the Duchess of Devonshire -- 25. “Despised by Sweden and by Every Swede” -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index -- Colour Plates.
Content:
Johan David Åkerblad (1763–1819) contributed to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs and Demotic and is known as a predecessor of Jean-François Champollion. This intellectual biography offers a new and less heroic interpretation of the first reading of the Egyptian scripts. Åkerblad, an exceptional linguist, was a diplomat and orientalist who spent several decades living in the Ottoman Empire, France and Italy. Of humble birth, he was a supporter of the French Revolution – something that stymied his career. His life cannot be understood in a purely Swedish national framework, and this study firmly situates him as an international scholar. The book discusses European expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean during the tumultuous decades around the year 1800, and traces Åkerblad’s momentous life in relation to the debates on ‘orientalism,’ the tradition of classical studies and the history of science
Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index
Additional Edition:
ISBN 9789004211162
Additional Edition:
Erscheint auch als Druck-Ausgabe The Life of J.D. Åkerblad: Egyptian Decipherment and Orientalism in Revolutionary Times Leiden, Boston : BRILL, 2013 ISBN 9789004211162
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1163/9789004236356
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