Moyen orient

1838 · réf. 14532 — 1838. Stephens John Lloyd. Incidents of Travel in Egypt Arabia Petraea and the Holy Land 1838. Expanded London edition of the American traveler's account of his journey through Egypt the Sinai Peninsula Petra and Palestine first published in New York in 1837 under the name George Stephens. John Lloyd Stephens 1805-1852 an American lawyer traveler and later a pioneering investigator of Maya archaeological sites in Central America traveled through the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East during the 1830s recording ancient monuments religious sites local customs and encounters with inhabitants of territories then under Ottoman or Egyptian administration. His visit to Petra the ancient Nabataean capital in present-day Jordan occurred when the archaeological city remained little known to American readers following its identification to European scholarship by Johann Ludwig Burckhardt in 1812. Stephens's narrative combines descriptions of Egyptian antiquities Bedouin guides desert travel biblical geography and the religious communities of Jerusalem and its surrounding regions. Stephens John Lloyd published as George Stephens. Incidents of Travel in Egypt Arabia Petraea and the Holy Land. London: Richard Bentley 1838. Expanded London edition following the original American publication of 1837. Two volumes approximately 8" x 5". Volume I: 317 pp.; Volume II: 361 pp. The first volume follows Stephens's arrival in Alexandria his journey along the Nile to Upper Egypt and his passage through the Sinai Peninsula including a visit to St. Catherine's Monastery. The second volume describes his journey toward Aqaba and Petra followed by travels through Gaza Hebron Jerusalem Jericho and the Dead Sea before continuing northward toward the Mediterranean coast. His observations include descriptions of ancient ruins religious monuments desert routes local inhabitants and the arrangements required for travel through territories controlled by different political and tribal authorities. Stephens traveled through the region during the period of Egyptian occupation of Syria and Palestine under Muhammad Ali Pasha and his son Ibrahim Pasha 1831-1840 when Ottoman authority in the eastern Mediterranean was contested. His account records the conditions encountered by an American traveler navigating the Nile Valley the Sinai desert and the routes connecting Petra with the cities and religious sites of Palestine. His descriptions of Petra contributed to the growing nineteenth-century English-language literature concerning Nabataean archaeology while his observations of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea preserve contemporary accounts of travel through Ottoman-era religious and historical landscapes. The two volumes retain fairly tight bindings with some foxing to the pages surface soiling to the boards and slight rubbing to the spines. Overall in good condition. unknown books