Halévy, JOSEPH

Halévy, JOSEPH, an eminent French orientalist and traveller, was born 15th December 1827, at Adrianople. In 1868 he travelled in northern Abyssinia; next he traversed (1869-70) Yemen in quest of Sabæan inscriptions for the French Academy—one of the most fruitful journeys ever made by an archaeologist. No European face had been seen in the Jowf since the soldiers of Ælius Gallus had visited it in the year 24 A.D., and Halévy travelled as far north as Bled Nedjran (18° N. lat.), and was able to collect as many as 860 inscriptions. His chief books are Mission archéologique dans le Yemen (1872), Essai sur la Langue Agauou, le Dialect des Falachas (1873), Voyage au Nedjran (1873), Études Berbères (1873), Mélanges d'Épigraphie et d'Archéologie Sémitiques (1874), Études Sabéennes (1875), Études sur la Syllabaire Cunéiforme (1876), Recherches critiques sur l'Origine de la Civilisation Babyloniennne (1877), Essai sur les Inscriptions du Safa (1882), and Mélanges de Critique et d'Histoire (1883).