Benoît de Maillet (1656–1738)

French diplomat and traveller. General consul of the king of France in Cairo, 1692–1708; consul in Livorno, 1708–14; inspector of French establishments in the Levant and Barbary States, 1715–20; retired to Paris, 1720–1, then Marseilles. Published Description de l’Egypte (1735). His Telliamed, based on geological observations made during his travels in Egypt and other Mediterranean countries, was published posthumously (1748).