Adriaan Reland

Adriaan Reland (also known as Adriaen Reeland/Reelant, Hadrianus Relandus; 17 July 1676 – 5 February 1718)[1] was a Dutch Orientalist scholar, cartographer and philologist.

[2] Even though he never left the Netherlands,[3][4] he made significant contributions to Middle Eastern and Asian linguistics and cartography, including Persia, Japan and Palestine during the biblical ages (the Holy Land).

In 1699, after obtaining his doctorate in Utrecht, Reland moved to Leiden and tutored the son of Hans Willem Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland.

Moreover, he discovered the link for the Malay language to the Western Pacific dictionaries of Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire.

He published Antiquitates Sacrae veterum Hebraeorum (1708) and Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata (1714), in which he described and mapped the biblical peoples , and ancient geography of Palestine.

Engraving, c. 1712
Manuscript of Reland's work on the foundations of the Persian language ( Prima elementa linguae persicae nitidissime conscriptae Adriani Relandi ). Printed in Utrecht , dated 1705
Frontispiece of Adriaan Reland's Palaestina ex monumentis veteribus illustrata
Image from critique of Hadriani Relandi de spoliis templi Hierosolymitani published in Acta Eruditorum , 1717
Image from critique of Hadriani Relandi de spoliis templi Hierosolymitani published in Acta Eruditorum , 1717