Father Claude Sicard (1677–1726) was a French Jesuit priest, and an early modern visitor to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

, between 1708 and 1712. Sicard was a scholar and at the age of 22 was a professor in the seminary at

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan language, Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, third-largest city and Urban area (France), second-largest metropolitan area of F ...

.Thompson, Jason. (2015). ''Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology''. ''1: From Antiquity to 1881''. American University of Cairo Press. pp. 77-78. He was well educated in Latin, Greek, Coptic and Arabic. He was also skilled in cartography. His aim was to convert Egypt's

Coptic Christians Copts ( cop, ⲛⲓⲣⲉⲙⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ ; ar, الْقِبْط ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group indigenous to North Africa who have primarily inhabited the area of modern Egypt and Sudan since antiquity. Most ethnic Copts are Co ...

to Roman Catholicism. Sicard was Supervisor of the Jesuit Mission in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

. He ate only vegetables and conformed to the Egyptian way of living for nine successive years. He was the first European to locate Thebes. He identified the ruins of

Karnak The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (, which was originally derived from ar, خورنق ''Khurnaq'' "fortified village"), comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Constr ...

and

Luxor Luxor ( ar, الأقصر, al-ʾuqṣur, lit=the palaces) is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of ''Thebes''. Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-a ...

as those of ancient Thebes.La Farge, Henry Adams. (1980). ''Museums of Egypt''. Newsweek. p. 165 Sicard commented that "Its remains are magnificent and more extensive than it is possible to imagine." Sicard died of

plague Plague or The Plague may refer to: Agriculture, fauna, and medicine *Plague (disease), a disease caused by ''Yersinia pestis'' * An epidemic of infectious disease (medical or agricultural) * A pandemic caused by such a disease * A swarm of pe ...

from nursing the afflicted in 1726.

Works

* ''Extrait de la Carte de l'Egypte ancienne du P. Sicard présentée à L. XV. Au Kaire l'an 17 ..'' (1722)

References

1677 births 1726 deaths 18th-century French archaeologists 18th-century deaths from plague (disease) People from Aubagne French Egyptologists 18th-century French Jesuits French cartographers French Roman Catholic missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in Egypt French expatriates in Egypt Jesuit missionaries Missionary linguists Thebes, Egypt {{Egyptologist-stub