Philological research and comparative religionsFirst the Christian missions and then trade with the Orient inspired a
tradition of learning Oriental languages and, to some extent, travel writing.
The most important in the latter category was the work published by a
German physician working for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in
Japan at the end of the seventeenth century, between 1690 and 1702, entitled
History of Japan, Together with a Description of the Kingdom of Siam(Engel-
bert Kaempfer, 1727–8) (Cribbet al. 2004: 268). At the Athenaeum Illustre
(university) of Amsterdam in The Netherlands, the teaching of Oriental
languages started in 1686 with the appointment of Stephanus Morinus
(1624–1700) to a chair. To begin with, this teaching was connected with
biblical studies (Chapter 6). 12 The languages known by Morinus were Heb-
rew, Arabic, Aramaic and Ethiopic. It is unclear, therefore, when the term
‘Oriental languages’ started to include those of East and Central Asia. In the
eighteenth century the Collegio dei Cinesi (the Chinese College) was founded
by Father Matteo Ripa (1682–1746) in Naples in 1732. This enjoyed a long
existence, and was transformed into the Real Collegio Asiatico (Royal Asian
College) in 1869, which after further changes to its name has become today’s
Istituto Universitario Orientale in Naples (Taddei 1979: vi). In France, during
the eighteenth century, some translations were undertaken by Chinese and
Japanese scholars who had moved to Europe after undergoing religious
conversion to Catholicism. One of them was Huang Jialu ̈(1679–1716), sent
to France by the Jesuits. In Paris he served as the Chinese-French interpreter
at the Royal Library. His follower in the post, Re ́musat, would be theWrst
academic to teach Asian languages in France. In 1814 he became the
Wrst professor of Chinese language at the Parisian College de France. The chair created in the College de France was obtained by Jean-Pierre
Abel-Re ́musat (1788–1832). He was a doctor who had taught himself Chi-
nese, and who had also learned Tibetan and Mongolian. He was theWrst
secretary of the Asiatic Society of Paris, a learned association set up in 1822
that, as seen in Chapter 6, had an important role in the birth of the study of
Mesopotamian archaeology in France. The society’s aims were to promote
Oriental languages including the translation of texts and to assist in publish-
ing research by Orientalists (McGetchin 2003). From the very year of its
foundation, the society published theJournal Asiatique.Re ́musat laid the
foundations for French Sinology’s focus on systematic bibliography with his
translation of the bibliographical sections of Ma Duan-lin’sWenxian tongkao,
12 A much earlier precedent seems to have been the decision taken in 1311 by the Council of
Vienna that Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldean (i.e. Aramaic) should be taught atWve
Christian universities (Hagen 2004: 146).
190 Archaeology of Informal Imperialism