Friedrich Koepp

Friedrich Koepp (born February 3, 1860 in Biebrich / Wiesbaden; † May 9, 1944 in Münster ) was a German philologist and archaeologist .

Koepp studied in Bonn with Hermann Usener and Franz Bücheler , and in Göttingen with Karl Dilthey (an uncle of Koepp) and received his doctorate on a topic from the Greek legend ( gigantomachy ). In the spring of 1884 he visited the ancient sites of Greece for the first time, took part in the excavations of Pergamon and had longer stays in Rome, Naples and Pompeii . In 1887 he accepted an assistant position at the Imperial Archaeological Institute in Berlin, in 1891 he completed his habilitation with the title: About Greece's Relations with Persia and Alexander. In 1896 Koepp left Berlin and accepted a teaching position for archeology and history in Münster .

In the summer of 1899, Koepp took part in an exploratory excavation at Annaberg in Haltern as a member of the Antiquities Commission for Westphalia founded in 1896 under the direction of Carl Schuchhardt . It was assumed that the Roman fort Aliso was there . After the first discoveries, the excavations were intensified under the direction of Koepp, so that the Roman camp Haltern , which is known today, could be exposed in the following years . On January 1, 1900, the first finds were exhibited in the old Rector's School. With the support of Emperor Wilhelm II - who donated 10,000 Reichsmarks - the first Roman-Germanic Museum was built in Haltern on Kärntner Platz and opened in 1907.

Koepp became managing director of the Westphalian Antiquities Commission in Münster and organized further excavations in Haltern. In 1908 he became a member of the Roman-Germanic Commission in Frankfurt, took over its management in 1916 and settled in Frankfurt, where he also began teaching at the university. In 1922 he was elected a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences . In 1925 Koepp settled in Göttingen and published various books, including a. Römer in Germany , Germania Romana and a small autobiography with the “farewell song ” on his library: Valete libelli .

Friedrich Koepp died at the age of 84. A street in Haltern am See is named after him.

literature

• Günter Grimm : Friedrich Koepp . In: Reinhard Lullies , Wolfgang Schiering (editor): Archaeological portraits. Portraits and short biographies of classical archaeologists in the German language . Mainz 1988. pp. 136-137.
• Bernard E. Köster: Friedrich Koepp, Valete libelli . Haltern am See 2008.

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich Koepp in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 135.