Victor Guérin

This article is about the French archaeologist. For the Brazilian racing driver, see Victor Guerin (racing driver).

portrait of Victor Guérin

The Tomb of Jonah in Mashhad, reprinted in La Terre Sainte from Picturesque Palestine

Victor Guérin (15 September 1821 – 21 September 1891) was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Minor, North Africa, Syria and Palestine.

Biography

From 1840, Guerin was a professor of rhetoric and member of faculty in various colleges and high schools in France and in Algeria. In 1852, he became a member of the French School of Athens. With the financial help of Honoré Théodoric d'Albert de Luynes he was able to explore Greece and its islands, Asia Minor, Egypt, Nubia, Tunisia and the Levant.

He spent some time as a professor of foreign literature in Lyon and Grenoble, and in 1878 he joined the faculty of the Institut Catholique de Paris.

He died on 21 September 1891 in Paris.

Expeditions

Guérin visited the Holy Land eight times in 1852, 1854, 1863, 1870, 1875, 1882, 1884, and 1888. He won a French Academy of Sciences prize for his 7-volume Geographical, Historical, and Archaeological Description of Palestine. Much of Guérin's seminal work is spent in describing the ruins (khirbas) in those places he visited.

Works

In his books Guerin writes about the identification and history of archaeological sites, often referring to passages from the Hebrew Bible, Greek mythology, and contemporary explorers and scholars such as Robinson and Titus Tobler. He also quotes from other Jewish sources such as the Mishna and Talmud, as well as Jewish travelers such as Benjamin of Tudela and Isaac Chelo.

His published works include:

• Voyage dans l’Île de Rhodes et description de cette Île. Paris (1856)
• Voyage archéologique dans la régence de Tunis. 2 Bde. Paris (1862)
• Guérin, Victor (1868). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 1: Judée, pt. 1. Paris: L'Imprimerie impériale.
• Guérin, Victor (1869). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 1: Judée, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie impériale.
• Guérin, Victor (1869). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 1: Judée, pt. 3. Paris: L'Imprimerie impériale.
• Guérin, Victor (1874). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 2: Samarie, pt. 1. Paris: L'Imprimerie nationale.
• Guérin, Victor (1875). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 2: Samarie, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie nationale.
• Guérin, Victor (1880). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 3: Galilée, pt. 1. Paris: L'Imprimerie nationale.
• Guérin, Victor (1880). Description Géographique Historique et Archéologique de la Palestine (in French). 3: Galilée, pt. 2. Paris: L'Imprimerie nationale.
• La Terre Sainte, Vol. I: Son Histoire, Ses Souvenirs, Ses Sites, Ses Monuments [The Holy Land: Its History, Its Records, Its Sites, Its Monuments], Paris: E. Plon & Co., 1882. (in French)
• La Terre Sainte, Vol. II: Liban, Phénicie, Palestine Occidentale et Méridionale, Pétra, Sinaï, Égypte [The Holy Land: Lebanon, Phoenicia, Western and Southern Palestine, Petra, Sinai, Egypt], Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit, & Co., 1884. (in French)
• Jérusalem : son histoire, sa description, ses établissements religieux. Paris (1889)
• La France catholique en Égypte. Tours (Neuausgabe, 1892)
• La France catholique en Tunisie. Paris (Neuausgabe, 1893)

External links

• Guerin map of Palestine, at NLI