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Fulgence Fresnel (/ˈfreɪn-, ˈfrɛn.ɛl, -əl/ FRAYN-, FREN-el, -əl or /freɪˈnɛl/ fray-NEL;[1] French: [fylʒɑ̃s fʁɛnɛl];[2] (15 April 1795 – 30 November 1855) was a French Orientalist. He was brother to the noted physicist Augustin Fresnel (1788–1827). Fresnel was an Orientalist scholar who led one of the first archaeological teams to excavate in Mesopotamia.
Fulgence Fresnel | |
|---|---|
| Born | 16 April 1795 |
| Died | 30 November 1855 (aged 60) |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation(s) | Assyriologist Orientalist Translator Diplomat |
| Relatives | Augustin-Jean Fresnel (brother) Léonor Mérimée (uncle) Prosper Mérimée (cousin) |
As a young man, Fresnel studied sciences, literature, and languages, and translated a few works by 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 he undertook studies of the language and history of the Arabs at Maronite College in Rome.
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Fresnel was appointed French consular agent in Cairo in 1837, and then consul 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 into contact with descendants of the Himyarites. Fresnel is credited as the first European to provide a translation of ancient Himyarite inscriptions. He also wrote the first description of the Shehri language.[3] He was a prominent member of the Societe Asiatique and considered one of France's leading Arabists of the period.[4] He was named chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1849.[5]
In 1851, he was put in charge of the French scientific expedition to Mesopotamia, where he was accompanied by assyriologist Jules Oppert, the architect, Felix Thomas and expedition administrator Edouard Perreymond.[4][5] The expedition suffered misfortunes from ill health, uncertainties due to the Arab unrest in the Ottoman Empire and ultimately critical financial issues.[6] Nevertheless, it has been argued that the expedition discovered the true location of ancient Babylon.[5][7][8]
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Much of the mission's work[9] was subsequently lost in May 1855 when the rafts transporting it were attacked and sunk on the river Tigris.[10][11] Subsequent efforts to recover the over 200 cases of lost antiquities at Al-Qurnah, including a Japanese expedition in 1971-2, have as yet been unsuccessful.[11] One notable feature of the expedition was the use of a new and still secret procedure for making casts, developed by Lattin de Laval.[12]
Oppert and Thomas had already left the expedition in 1854, while Fresnel chose to remain in the Middle East. Further to the Al-Qurnah Disaster noted above, he died of consumption in Baghdad on 30 November 1855.[13] Perreymond his assistant, also died there in 1858, having been unable to return to France.[14]
Fresnel's notes on the expedition were included in the treatise, Expedition Scientifique En Mésopotamie: Exécutée Par Ordre Du Gouvernement De 1851 À 1854 by Julius Oppert first published in 1858.[15] A detailed report by Maurice Pillet on the travails and eventual unravelling of Fresnel's mission to Babylon was published in 1922.[5][16]
Fresnel was born in Mathieu, Calvados in 1795 and was the youngest of four sons of an architect.[17] He married in 1849 to a Galla (Abyssinian) woman he had bought out of slavery during his time in Egypt. She would remain in Geneva while he led the mission to Mesopotamia.[5]
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