Key dates in his life
July 1772: Jean-Louis Asselin de Cherville is born in Cherbourg.
1792: Receives the tonsure and is admitted to the Roman Catholic clergy.
1794: He leaves the clergy and becomes a tutor at a teacher-training institute during the anti-clerical French Revolution.
1795–1802: works at the Ministry of the Treasury in Paris.
1802‒1806: leaves the Ministry of Treasury and studies Oriental languages, in particular Arabic under Prof. Silvestre de Sacy.
1806‒1816: works as the second interpreter (dragoman) at the French and Italian consulate in Cairo and becomes vice-consul.
- In addition to his official duties as a consular agent, Asselin makes a name for himself as a collector (particularly of ancient Quranic manuscripts from the historic Amr ibn al-Aas Mosque) and as the organizer and advisor for Abba Abraham‘s translation of the Bible into Amharic.
1814/15: sends Amharic translations of selected Old Testament books to Paris, London, and the Vatican. However, this results in neither sales of the remaining biblical manuscripts nor any public academic recognition.
1816‒1821/22: serves as the first interpreter at the consulate in Alexandria.
April 1820: sells the manuscript of the Amharic Bible translated by Abba Abraham to William Jowett, who acquired it on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society for the high price of 1,250 pounds.
- This translation is the basis for almost all printed Amharic Bibles up to the early 1960s.
June 1822: dies in Cairo a few months after retiring from his position at the consulate in Alexandria.
Work as a consular agent in Egypt and collector of Oriental manuscripts
» View inventories of manuscripts associated with Asselin de Cherville at the French National Library
Asselin’s efforts to make Amharic known in Europe
» Read the English translation of Dehérain’s research article
» Manuscripts of Amharic Bible texts (mainly translated by Abba Abraham under the supervision of Asselin de Cherville)
Further reading
» View bibliography (with links)