Félix Marie Charles Texier

Who was Félix Marie Charles Texier?

Félix Marie Charles Texier was a French historian, architect and archaeologist. Texier published a number of significant works involving personal travels throughout Asia Minor and the Middle East. These books included descriptions and maps of ancient sites, reports of regional geography and geology, descriptions of art works and architecture, et al.

Trained as an architect at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he was appointed inspector of public works in 1827. He conducted excavations of the port cities of Fréjus and Ostia. In 1833 he was sent on an exploratory mission to Asia Minor, where in 1834 he discovered ruins of the ancient Hittite capital of Hattusa. As a result of the expedition, he published the two-volume Description de l'Asie Mineure faite par ordre du Gouvernement français. Later in the decade he participated in an expedition that took him to Armenia, Mesopotamia and Persia.

In 1840 he became deputy professor of archaeology at the Collège de France, and in 1845 relocated to Algeria as inspector general of public buildings. In 1855 he was elected to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.