SEETZEN, ULRICH JASPER (1767-1811)

This article appears in Volume V24, Page 581 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: SCY-SHA

SEETZEN, ULRICH JASPER (1767-1811) , German explorer of Arabia and Palestine, was born, the son of a yeoman, in the little lordship of Jever in German Frisia on the 30th of January 17(7. His father, who was a man of substance, sent him to the university of Gottingen, where he graduated in medicine. His

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

interests, however, were in natural history and technology; he wrote papers on both these subjects which gained him some reputation, and had both in view in making a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of journeys through Holland and Germany. He also engaged in various small manufactures, and in 18o2 obtained a government post in Jever. In 18or, however, the

interest

INTEREST

which he had long felt in geographical exploration culminated in a resolution to travel. In the summer of 1802 he started down the Danube with a companion

Jacobsen

JACOBSEN, JENS PETER (1847-1885)

, who broke down at Smyrna a year later. His journey was by Constantinople, where he stayed six months, thence through Asia

Minor

to Smyrna, then again through the heart of Asia

Minor

to Aleppo, where he remained from November 1803 to April 1805, and made himself sufficiently at

home

with Arabic speech and ways to travel as a native. Now began the part of his travels of which a full journal has been published (April 18os to March 1809), a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of most instructive journeys in eastern and western Palestine and the wilderness of

Sinai

SINAI

, and so on to Cairo and the Fayum. His

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

exploit was a tour round the Dead Sea, which he made without a companion and in the disguise of a beggar. From Egypt he went by sea to Jidda and reached Mecca as a pilgrim in October 1809. In Arabia he made extensive journeys, ranging from Medina to Lahak and returning to Mocha, from which place his last letters to Europe were written in November 181o. In September of the following year he left Mocha with the

hope

HOPE, ANTHONY
HOPE, THOMAS (c. 1770-1831)

of reaching Muscat, and was found dead two days later, having, it is believed, been poisoned by the command of the imam of Sana.
For the parts of Seetzen's journeys not covered by the published journal (Reisen, ed. Kruse, 4 vols., Berlin, 1854), the only printed records are a series of letters and papers in Zach's Monatliche Correspondenz and

Hammer

FRIEDRICH
- FRIEDRICH, JOHANN (1836— )
_JULIUS_1810_1.html">HAMMER,
FRIEDRICH
- FRIEDRICH, JOHANN (1836— )
JULIUS (1810-1862)

's Fundgruben. Many papers and collections were lost through his death or never reached Europe. The collections that were saved form the Oriental museum and the chief part of the Oriental MSS. of the ducal library in Gotha.

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