Niebuhrmania

 This image of Niebuhr in a dashing orientalist outfit is credited to C.C. Glas Bach at the Danish Royal Library. 

Sold on the idea by a professor at Gottingen, King Frederik V sponsored Carsten Niebuhr and five others on an Arabian journey from 1761 to 1767. Like a veteran of the Oregon Trail, Niebuhr watched all his traveling companions die on the voyage. When he returned, he wrote Travels through Arabia and other countries in the East.

He mentions the Obelisk of Cleopatra and the Pillar of Pompey but explains that few monuments remain because, “the Mahometans in general, and especially the inhabitants of Alexandria, break down the finest monuments of antiquity, to employ the fragments in the most wretched structures unimaginable. Whenever they are at any loss for materials for building, they scruple not to dig up the foundation stones of the ancient walls and palaces. If one happens to find a beautiful column in his garden, he will rather make mill-stones out of it, than preserve it.” p 33.

Niebuhr’s displays his deep cultural sensitivity in his description of export laws:

“The Turks have absolutely forbidden the exportation of dead bodies or mummies […] however, as the customhouse of Alexandria is at present under the direction of Jews, we found means to procure one mummy and carry it on board an Italian vessel. But we were obliged to return it; for all the Italian sailors threatened to leave the ship, if the Captain did not send away that Pagan carcase (sic), which could not fail to bring some mischief upon them.” p 35.

He also tells a charming story of Catholic priests claiming that they carried away the head of Saint Mark by disguising it as salted pork so it wouldn’t be inspected at customs.