Description De L'Arabie, D'Apres Les Observations Et Recherches Faites Dans Le Pays Meme; In two volumes

Paris: Chez Brunet, Libraire, rue des Ecrivains, 1779. Third Edition. Traditional French Binding with brown calf over boards with five raised bands and gilt titling and decoration on the spine. Scraped and buffed with wear through at the extremities. Blue and pink bubble style marbled endpapers. Red edges and green silk string page markers in matching volumes. Very good with usual deficiencies of age. Occasional, light foxing and toning. Vol. 2 has a light tide mark at the top of pp. 1-9 and top corner of 291-302. 7.5" x 9.87", Vol. 1: pp [2], 1-252. 15 Tables (Woodcut illustrations of the author's encounters) Vol. 2: pp 2-315, [5] Table of Contents and Privilege du Roi with Tables 16-24 followed by a fold-out map of Yemen. Other fold-outs include "Kriegsubungen der Araber in Yemen" (Military training exercises), Map of Oman, Map of the Sinai and Red Sea, and two maps of the Arab Sea and Suez.<br /> <br /> The Royal Danish Arabia Expedition, departed with six prominent scientists and ethnographers in 1761, and only one survived the trip, Carsten Niebuhr (1733-1815). Niebuhr was selected as a talented Army Lieutenant surveyor to join the expedition as cartographer of the Arabian peninsula and near east. His meticulous documentation and mapping of the Arabian Peninsula laid the foundation for modern knowledge of the region and his maps were used for exploration over the next 100 years. Aside from his cartographic contributions; Niebuhr was the first European to accurately measure the height of the Great Pyramids of Giza using his surveying equipment; visited and profiled Mecca almost a century before Sir Richard Burton; and along with his fellow explorer, biologist Peter Forsskål of Sweden, a student of Carl Linnaeus, "the father of taxonomy", wrote the first treatise on the cultivation and trade of coffee and kat. His fastidious recording of observations in "Felix Arabia" yielded an enduring contribution to Philology: His copies of the cuneiform inscriptions at Persepolis proved to be a key turning-point in the decipherment of cuneiform, and the birth of Assyriology. Niebuhr's solo and unheralded return to Copenhagen on horseback lacked the celebration it deserved. For the next 20 years he lived a simple life as a postal employee while persevering in solitude the writing and publishing of the Expedition's results. He was finally recognized 25 years later for his accomplishments when he was inducted as a Fellow in the French Academy.