RENAN, Joseph Ernest.
Mission de Phénicie.
Paris, Imprimerie Impériale/Nationale, 1864-1874. 14 volumes bound as 13 (7 of text and 7 of plates, the latter bound as 6). Folio (27,5 x 36,5 and 37 x 55,5 cm). With 70 engraved and lithographed numbered plates (including 1 folding), 1 folding map, and 8 plans(including 3 folding), a few in contemporary hand colouring, and several illustrations in the text.Contemporary wrappers. Plates stored in two half cloth portfolios. [4], 884, [4] pp.
€ 25,000
Very rare complete set of the first edition of a monumental and extensively illustrated description of the 1860/61 archaeological expedition to Lebanon and Syria, commissioned by Napoleon III and led by the renowned scholar of Semitic languages, Joseph Ernest Renan. The text volumes give a vivid account of the expedition, its route and findings, and include several illustrations in the text, while the plates provide additional documentation of the archaeological sites visited. Engraved by Jules Penel (1833-post 1910?), Georges Erhard Schièble (1821-80), and others, they include a map of the expedition area, Phoenician monuments at Amrit, Arwad, Byblos, Sidon and other places, as well as a folding plate showing the Kabr Hiram mosaic and 3 folding plans depicting Sidon and the Sidon necropolis.
This important work documents the state of the excavations at that time and triggered further research on the Phoenicians. A facsimile edition appeared in 1998.
Text volumes untrimmed, with all deckles preserved. Some wrappers faded, extremities bumped. Paper somewhat browned as common; plates fresh and clean. Harris, Lebanon, p. 175.
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