Jena: Hilprecht/ Delitzsch/Schrader/Pan-Babylonian
Sept 7, 2007 1:55:57 GMT -5
Post by us4-he2-gal2 on Sept 7, 2007 1:55:57 GMT -5
Thread Orientation: This thread in an open ended exploration of three important figure's in Gemeran Assyriology, Schrader his student Delitzsch and his student Hilpecht. My hope is that after considerable effort, I will have gained and presented here, an outline of early German Assyriology.
Note the Hilprecht collection mentioned below is now housed at the Friedrich Schiller university, city of Jena, Germany.
As a German Scholar:
Hermann V. Hilprecht, born 1859 in Hohenerxleben, Germany, was an enthusiastic, if sometimes controversial, early Assyriologist. He studied under the esteemed Professor Friedrich Delitzsch who won fame as an Assyriologist but also as a man who taught "the men who developed the young science of Assyriology." Delitzsch first taught at Leipzig, then Breslau, and finally Berlin. [1] (In turn, Delitzsch himself was a student of Eberhard Schrader who is said to have initiated German Assyriology with his efforts in Jena, a city which is therefore sometimes termed the 'origin-place' of German Assyriology [2])
Although Hilprecht received his phd in Assyriology in Leipzeig in 1883, under Delitzsch, he is nonetheless sometimes referred to as an American Assyriologist, probably owing to his move to Pennsylvania in 1886. Its apparent that Hilprechts motivation at this time (which may seem strange to us in retrospect) was to move to Pennsylvania in order to edit the publication "Sunday School Times".. which, if overtly religious by times, would not disagree with the fact that Hilprecht was also a Lutherian minister. [3] He was subsequently hired as a lecturer by the University of Pennsylvania, first as Professor of Egyptology and then as Professor of Assyriology a position he held from 1886-1911. In addition he was made Curator of the Babylonian section of the University Museum (Penn) 1887-1911.
The Expedition:
The University of Pennsylvania would soon embark on what is termed 'the second major expedition on a Sumerian site', and it was the first American expedition to excavate in Mesopotamia. Hilprecht was signed on as co-Assyriologist responsible for examining the cuneiform documents, and this eleven year endeavor would largely define his career. The expedition, termed 'The University of Pennsylvania's Babylonian Expedition', focused on the area of Nippur, that centerpiece of Mesopotamian religion. In four campaigns spanning 1889-90. 1890-91, 1893-96, and 1896-1900, the Penn team (to include Hilprecht) established the basic stratigraphy of the site and recovered tens of thousands of cuneiform documents, many of which ended up in the newly founded University Museum in Philadelphia. [4] Of particularly note here was the discovery of 'tablet hill' a section on the eastern mound which produced the majority of the tablets. The literary significance of these Nippurian tablets for the understanding of Sumerian myth and religion is profound. By way of illustration, in 1944 S.N. Kramer, who had a lot to do with the resurrection of Sumerian mythology, knew of some 3000 Sumerian tablets and fragments containing specifically literary compositions (many others were lexical,or administrative etc). Of those 3000, 900 originated from various sites, while 2100 (!) were Nippurian, and originated from the University of Pennsylvania's Babylonian Expedition. The latter were thus considered the major source for the restoration of Sumerian literature. These 2100 Nippurian tablets are further broken down this way - Over 100 found there way to the University of Jena, Germany; approx 800 to the Museum of the Ancient Orient, Istanbul; and almost 1100 are located at the University Museum in Philadelphia. [5] Elsewhere Kramer comments "and although these remained unintelligible for many a decade after their discovery, Hilprecht, who handled and catalogued many of them, realized their significance for the history of religion and literature."
-Cdli makes available scans of what I take to be Hilprechts field journal from the last dig during the expedition 1896-1900 (German)
courtesy of Manfred Krebernik, Jena, and Peter Damerow, Berlin
cdli.ucla.edu/edu/hilprecht/hilprecht_tagebuch_link/tgb.html
-Hilprechts work "Old Babylonian Inscriptions chiefly from Nippur" volume 1, can be downloaded at:
www.archive.org/details/serababylonianex01univuoft
(Further volumes available by searching "The Babylonian Expedition" at http://www.archive.org)
-A Bibliography of publications dealing with Excavations from Nippur can be found at the 'Nippur Reading Room'
www.fortunecity.com/victorian/stone/319/nbiblio.html
How did those tablets make there way to Jena?
Of the things that can be said about Hilprecht, it must eventually be noted that throughout his career he tended distance people, including his own colleagues. As a professor he was considered brilliant but 'egotistical and abrasive', and its somewhat clear he was disliked by the expedition leaders (if not the entire party). As the years went on, he would strike up considerably controversy by consistently exaggerating his own accomplishments and making academic-misstatements and notably, these were significant enough to earn a public condemnation by his own teacher, Friedrich Delitzsch. As one source says: "Hilprecht was content to leave uncorrected the public’s impression that he had done most of the work in the desert. In fact, he was out there amidst the sandstorms and flies only twice in 11 years, spending most of his time back in Philadelphia, translating and publishing results; in Constantinople, where he curried favor with the Ottoman Sultan (and secured for Penn the gift of many tablets) by lending his expertise to the imperial museum; and at his home in Jena, Germany " [1].
In those days the Ottoman empire held sway over the dig sites, and in 1883 the 'Turkish Law on Antiquities' had taken effect, which claimed for the Istanbul Museum all the antiquities discovered on the territory of the Ottoman Empire. Hilprecht by his services to the Istanbul museum, and favor from the Sultan may have assisted the Penn. Museums acquisition of tablets; yet his personal acceptance of 2500 Nippurian tablets (approx. 100 literary) from the Sultan, and his choice to retain them at his residence in Jena, Germany, was also perceived as professional misconduct. As Kramer relays these and other matters "came to a head in the spring of 1905 when, at Hilprecht's request, the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania impaneled a court of inquiry headed by the provost and vice-provost in order to investigate the charges against him."[6] He was cleared of any wrong doing.. however professional conflicts continued and following additional insults, Hilprecht aged fifty, retired from Penn. University in early 1911. His career after word was not the same.
Following his death in 1925, Hilprechts collections were donated by his wife to the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, where they have been made accessible to the scholar. Befuddled by undersized grants, troublesome exchange rates, and a 18 month quest to obtain a visa from the a Russian consulate in Berlin, Kramer was able to travel to Jena in 1955 where he received the full assistance of the Hilprecht collection curator Inez Bernhardt. In this way during the course of subsequent visits, the literary tablets there were treated and published with Bernhardt in the volumes TMHNF III and TMHNF IV. [7] And of course in 1998, M. Geller examined 23 UrIII Incantations from the Hilprecht collection, with the assistance of curator Manfred Krebernik, these are published in the volume TMH 6.
At this page, a brief history and mission statement about the Collection:
www.uni-jena.de/hilprechtsammlung.html
Notes:
1. About Delitzsch www.ctsfw.edu/library/files/pb/1551 . This document can be referred to for an outline of Delitzsch' impressive career, and fascinating stand against the Old Testament (if this review is considered objective in any case.)
2. www.uni-jena.de/hilprechtsammlung.html
3. www.upenn.edu/gazette/0103/frithsidebar.html
4. The University of Pennsylvania's Babylonian Expedition
5. cdli.ucla.edu/wiki/index.php/Arkeoloji_Müzerleri,_Istanbul,_Turkey
note German - www.johnnewtoncenter.org/babel-lecture.doc.
6. S.N. Kramer, "In the World of Sumer" 1988 (Autobiography)
7. (TMH aka TMHNF) = Texte und Materialien der Frau Professor Hilprecht Collection .
Note the Hilprecht collection mentioned below is now housed at the Friedrich Schiller university, city of Jena, Germany.
Hilprecht, Nippur and Jena
As a German Scholar:
Hermann V. Hilprecht, born 1859 in Hohenerxleben, Germany, was an enthusiastic, if sometimes controversial, early Assyriologist. He studied under the esteemed Professor Friedrich Delitzsch who won fame as an Assyriologist but also as a man who taught "the men who developed the young science of Assyriology." Delitzsch first taught at Leipzig, then Breslau, and finally Berlin. [1] (In turn, Delitzsch himself was a student of Eberhard Schrader who is said to have initiated German Assyriology with his efforts in Jena, a city which is therefore sometimes termed the 'origin-place' of German Assyriology [2])
Although Hilprecht received his phd in Assyriology in Leipzeig in 1883, under Delitzsch, he is nonetheless sometimes referred to as an American Assyriologist, probably owing to his move to Pennsylvania in 1886. Its apparent that Hilprechts motivation at this time (which may seem strange to us in retrospect) was to move to Pennsylvania in order to edit the publication "Sunday School Times".. which, if overtly religious by times, would not disagree with the fact that Hilprecht was also a Lutherian minister. [3] He was subsequently hired as a lecturer by the University of Pennsylvania, first as Professor of Egyptology and then as Professor of Assyriology a position he held from 1886-1911. In addition he was made Curator of the Babylonian section of the University Museum (Penn) 1887-1911.
The Expedition:
The University of Pennsylvania would soon embark on what is termed 'the second major expedition on a Sumerian site', and it was the first American expedition to excavate in Mesopotamia. Hilprecht was signed on as co-Assyriologist responsible for examining the cuneiform documents, and this eleven year endeavor would largely define his career. The expedition, termed 'The University of Pennsylvania's Babylonian Expedition', focused on the area of Nippur, that centerpiece of Mesopotamian religion. In four campaigns spanning 1889-90. 1890-91, 1893-96, and 1896-1900, the Penn team (to include Hilprecht) established the basic stratigraphy of the site and recovered tens of thousands of cuneiform documents, many of which ended up in the newly founded University Museum in Philadelphia. [4] Of particularly note here was the discovery of 'tablet hill' a section on the eastern mound which produced the majority of the tablets. The literary significance of these Nippurian tablets for the understanding of Sumerian myth and religion is profound. By way of illustration, in 1944 S.N. Kramer, who had a lot to do with the resurrection of Sumerian mythology, knew of some 3000 Sumerian tablets and fragments containing specifically literary compositions (many others were lexical,or administrative etc). Of those 3000, 900 originated from various sites, while 2100 (!) were Nippurian, and originated from the University of Pennsylvania's Babylonian Expedition. The latter were thus considered the major source for the restoration of Sumerian literature. These 2100 Nippurian tablets are further broken down this way - Over 100 found there way to the University of Jena, Germany; approx 800 to the Museum of the Ancient Orient, Istanbul; and almost 1100 are located at the University Museum in Philadelphia. [5] Elsewhere Kramer comments "and although these remained unintelligible for many a decade after their discovery, Hilprecht, who handled and catalogued many of them, realized their significance for the history of religion and literature."
-Cdli makes available scans of what I take to be Hilprechts field journal from the last dig during the expedition 1896-1900 (German)
courtesy of Manfred Krebernik, Jena, and Peter Damerow, Berlin
cdli.ucla.edu/edu/hilprecht/hilprecht_tagebuch_link/tgb.html
-Hilprechts work "Old Babylonian Inscriptions chiefly from Nippur" volume 1, can be downloaded at:
www.archive.org/details/serababylonianex01univuoft
(Further volumes available by searching "The Babylonian Expedition" at http://www.archive.org)
-A Bibliography of publications dealing with Excavations from Nippur can be found at the 'Nippur Reading Room'
www.fortunecity.com/victorian/stone/319/nbiblio.html
How did those tablets make there way to Jena?
Of the things that can be said about Hilprecht, it must eventually be noted that throughout his career he tended distance people, including his own colleagues. As a professor he was considered brilliant but 'egotistical and abrasive', and its somewhat clear he was disliked by the expedition leaders (if not the entire party). As the years went on, he would strike up considerably controversy by consistently exaggerating his own accomplishments and making academic-misstatements and notably, these were significant enough to earn a public condemnation by his own teacher, Friedrich Delitzsch. As one source says: "Hilprecht was content to leave uncorrected the public’s impression that he had done most of the work in the desert. In fact, he was out there amidst the sandstorms and flies only twice in 11 years, spending most of his time back in Philadelphia, translating and publishing results; in Constantinople, where he curried favor with the Ottoman Sultan (and secured for Penn the gift of many tablets) by lending his expertise to the imperial museum; and at his home in Jena, Germany " [1].
In those days the Ottoman empire held sway over the dig sites, and in 1883 the 'Turkish Law on Antiquities' had taken effect, which claimed for the Istanbul Museum all the antiquities discovered on the territory of the Ottoman Empire. Hilprecht by his services to the Istanbul museum, and favor from the Sultan may have assisted the Penn. Museums acquisition of tablets; yet his personal acceptance of 2500 Nippurian tablets (approx. 100 literary) from the Sultan, and his choice to retain them at his residence in Jena, Germany, was also perceived as professional misconduct. As Kramer relays these and other matters "came to a head in the spring of 1905 when, at Hilprecht's request, the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania impaneled a court of inquiry headed by the provost and vice-provost in order to investigate the charges against him."[6] He was cleared of any wrong doing.. however professional conflicts continued and following additional insults, Hilprecht aged fifty, retired from Penn. University in early 1911. His career after word was not the same.
Following his death in 1925, Hilprechts collections were donated by his wife to the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, where they have been made accessible to the scholar. Befuddled by undersized grants, troublesome exchange rates, and a 18 month quest to obtain a visa from the a Russian consulate in Berlin, Kramer was able to travel to Jena in 1955 where he received the full assistance of the Hilprecht collection curator Inez Bernhardt. In this way during the course of subsequent visits, the literary tablets there were treated and published with Bernhardt in the volumes TMHNF III and TMHNF IV. [7] And of course in 1998, M. Geller examined 23 UrIII Incantations from the Hilprecht collection, with the assistance of curator Manfred Krebernik, these are published in the volume TMH 6.
At this page, a brief history and mission statement about the Collection:
www.uni-jena.de/hilprechtsammlung.html
Notes:
1. About Delitzsch www.ctsfw.edu/library/files/pb/1551 . This document can be referred to for an outline of Delitzsch' impressive career, and fascinating stand against the Old Testament (if this review is considered objective in any case.)
2. www.uni-jena.de/hilprechtsammlung.html
3. www.upenn.edu/gazette/0103/frithsidebar.html
4. The University of Pennsylvania's Babylonian Expedition
5. cdli.ucla.edu/wiki/index.php/Arkeoloji_Müzerleri,_Istanbul,_Turkey
note German - www.johnnewtoncenter.org/babel-lecture.doc.
6. S.N. Kramer, "In the World of Sumer" 1988 (Autobiography)
7. (TMH aka TMHNF) = Texte und Materialien der Frau Professor Hilprecht Collection .