Louis Maurice Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds
Overview
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
, July 9, 1883) was an explorer of Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
and, as the chief engineer of Egypt's public works
Egyptian Public Works
The Egyptian Department of Public Works was established in the early Nineteenth Century, and concentrates mainly on public works relating to irrigation and hydraulic engineering. These irrigation projects have constituted the bulk of work performed by this entity in Egypt...
, 1831–1869, the chief engineer of the Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
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Having taken advantage of a sound education that emphasized mathematics, drawing and painting, then having been given some experience at sea through the efforts of his father, Antoine-Marie Linant de Bellefonds, a naval officer, charting the coastal waters of Newfoundland, in 1814, aged fifteen, and then having passed his entrance exams, young Linant embarked as a naval cadet on the frigate Cléopâtre, engaged on a mission to Greece, Syria, Palestine and Egypt.
