Franz Cumont’s Syrian tour: a Belgian archaeologist in the Ottoman empire

This paper highlights the Western scientific traveller as an intermediary between Orient and Occident around the turn of the nineteenth century by presenting a case study on the Belgian archaeologist and historian of religions, Franz Cumont (1868-1947), and the dossier of the journey he undertook in Northern Syria, May 1907. After a discussion of this classicist's relation to the Orient, I give an account of Cumont's Syrian tour, based on three different writing contexts: the academic output of the expedition in Northern Syria, Cumont's private travel notes, and both his active and passive cor... Mehr ...