Fulgence Fresnel
Fulgence Fresnel (April 15, 1795 – November 30, 1855) was a French Orientalist who was a native of Mathieu, Calvados. He was brother to physicist Augustin Fresnel (1788–1827).
As a young man, he studied sciences, literature and languages, and translated a few works of Berzelius, stories by German novelist Johann Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853) and fragments of a Chinese novel (Fragments chinois, 1822–23). He was a pupil of Sylvestre de Sacy (1768–1838) in Paris, and in 1826 undertook studies of Arabic at Maronite College in Rome.
Later, he served as a consular agent in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah. In Arabia, he became a proficient speaker of local dialects, and during this time period, he came in contact with descendants of the Himyarites. Fresnel is credited as the first European to provide a translation of ancient Himyarite inscriptions.
In 1851 he was put in charge of a scientific expedition to Mesopotamia, where he was accompanied by assyriologist Jules Oppert (1825–1905). When the expedition members were recalled in 1854, Fresnel chose to remain in the Middle East, and died in Baghdad on November 30, 1855. His notes on the journey were included in Oppert's work, Expédition en Mésopotamie (1858, 1863).
Selected publications
- Hoa-tchou-onan ou le Livre mystérieux, (1822)
- Poésies du désert de Schanfara, (1834)
- Lettres sur l’histoire des Arabes avant l’islamisme, (1837)
- Explications d’inscriptions himyarites (1838, 1845)
References
- Parts of this article are based on a translation of an equivalent article at the French Wikipedia, source listed as: Gustave Vapereau, "Dictionnaire universel des contemporains", Paris, Louis Hachette, 1858, p. 703.
- H.P. Blavatsky Collected Writings (biography)
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