Sunday, January 27, 2013

The man who found oil!


The next time you fill your car tank think of this guy... His name is Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian and he is one of the pioneers of the oil industry! He's had a fascinating life: born in Istanbul in 1869, in an Armenian aristocrat family he studied in Turkey, France, England and "discovered" oil in Irak; he even participated in the creation of Shell! Anyway the reason why I photographed his bust, is that I discovered by sheer coincidence that he has a foundation in Paris where you can see - and read - a lot of stuff related to Portugal where he ended his life. More about him - and his fascinating life - on Wikipedia of course!

6 comments:

  1. Much has happened since his discovery, n'est-ce pas?

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  2. is this the gentleman to thank for the wars on irak, arab springs, wars for "democracy" and against "terrorism"
    also whoever discovered gas is to be thanked for all the geopolitical fustercluck
    not to mention the guy who discovered mayan gold and congolese minerals

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  3. Nice of Paris to put up a statue of Gulbenkian, considering that his vast art collection that once lived in Paris now is in Lisbon—or maybe this is at his foundation. Anyway, probably not fair to blame him for all the "sins" committed over petroleum.

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  4. That's right, Alexa. There will always be deep wells of oily people in the human race.

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  5. @Alexa "Anyway, probably not fair to blame him for all the "sins" committed over petroleum." Right? At the time of his discovery he probably did not know how ugly it was going to end!!

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  6. Never heard of him - thank you for the post. I followed the Wikipedia link and discovered a fine museum in Lisbon. Have a friend visiting there at this very moment and pointed her in that direction :-)

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