page_title: Tinco Martinus Lycklama à Nijeholt
section_title: Discovering the Middle East
hierarchical_section_title: Tinco Martinus Lycklama à Nijeholt / Discovering the Middle East
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Tinco Lycklama's voyage in 1865-1868 Nederlands: Reisroute van Tinco Lycklama in 1865-1868
context_page_description: Tinco Martinus Lycklama à Nijeholt was a Frisian aristocrat, adventurer, writer and socialite, also considered one of the first Dutch orientalists. At the age of 28, he took a three-year solitary voyage through Russia, the Caucasus and the Middle East. Shortly after his return to the Netherlands, he moved to Cannes. The report of his travels totals over 2,200 pages in four volumes. Tinco amassed an exceptional collection of oriental paintings and artifacts, which he donated to the city of Cannes in 1877. This collection is the centerpiece of the modern Musée de la Castre, the municipal museum of Cannes. Tinco Lycklama remained a citizen of Cannes until his death in 1900 and was a key personality in the fin-de-siècle of the Côte d'Azur.
context_section_description: In Paris, Tinco Lycklama conceived plans for a voyage of discovery and exploration through the Middle East. His main interests are Persia and Syria. In his opinion, most of his contemporaries seemed more interested in Asia and the Americas, whereas he had a passion for Mesopotamia and the Levant. His ambition was not to re-write the region's history, but rather to observe and to share the contemporary situation of this little-known part of the world, and to do so from a variety of angles (including tourism). But he would do more than that. Along the way, he bought all sorts of artifacts and conducted various archaeological digs. He took home a significant collection of objects that established his reputation as one of the first Dutch orientalists. His finds and observations in Persia in particular contributed significantly to our modern knowledge of the Qajar dynasty, which ruled Persia from 1789 to 1925.
  Tinco left Paris in April 1865. He travelled via Berlin and Russia to Tehran through the Caucasus. It was an unusual itinerary, as most travelers in those days preferred to take a more direct route via the Mediterranean and Turkey. Tinco's choice stems from his reading of the stories of French merchant-traveler Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605-1689). In April 1866, he arrived in Teheran where he spent six months. Next, he crisscrossed the region and visited Baghdad and other cities in modern Iraq. In September 1867, he left for Syria, where he spent eight months traveling the whole country. Then he took two months to discover Palestine and Jerusalem, before returning to Syria. In September 1868, he left the Middle East and travelled back to the Netherlands via Constantinople, Varna, Pest, and Vienna. He finally arrived home, at Beetsterzwaag, on 5 October 1868.
caption: Travel itinerary of Tinco Lycklama in 1865-1868 (source: "Voyage...", collection BNF/Gallica
exif: {"Image Software": "Picasa", "Image DateTime": "2016:01:24 18:02:12", "Image Artist": "Picasa", "Image ExifOffset": "96", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "364", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5250", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:01:24 18:00:47", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1024", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1342", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1024", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1342", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "228", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "f1e1f1eb56efcac3926bc6428f11fa3b"}