Heinrich Kiepert

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Heinrich Kiepert

Johann Samuel Heinrich Kiepert (born July 31, 1818 in Berlin ; † April 21, 1899 there ) was a German geographer and cartographer . He was a university professor in Berlin and author of numerous historical and school maps as well as maps of the Levant . However, his research results were very often incorporated into other publications.

Life

Heinrich Kiepert was born in Berlin as the son of the wealthy businessman Samuel Kiepert (1763-1836) and his wife Christine Henriette, née Beer. His brother, who was two years younger than him, was the later owner of the manor, Adolf Kiepert . Already in his youth he was interested in geographical locations while traveling with his parents, which he carefully sketched. Friends of the family included u. a. the historian Leopold von Ranke , who recommended that parents encourage the boy's innate talents. In the Joachimsthal grammar school , the teacher and director of the young Kiepert was the philologist August Meineke , who inspired Kiepert for classical antiquity . During this time, Kiepert criticized the incorrect execution of historical maps in school books.

Studies and first cartographic work

Since 1836 studied Heinrich Kiepert in Berlin Classical Philology at Karl Gottlob Zumpt , Classical Studies at August Boeckh and attended besides lectures on Geography at Carl Ritter , with whom he soon had a very close friendship. Ritter also encouraged him to publish his first historical maps. Through his mediation, Kiepert also became acquainted with the American theologian Edward Robinson , founder of the modern, scientific topography of Palestine , who commissioned him to use his route descriptions cartographically.

Mauritania and Numidia. In: Kiepert: Atlas antiquus .

The first partial delivery of Kiepert's work Atlas of Hellas and the Hellenic Colonies appeared as early as 1840 , to which Ritter wrote an appreciative foreword. It took until 1846 to complete the entire scope, but it was widely recognized by experts as an excellent work of the ancient topography of Greece . When in 1839 Ritter was asked by Prussian officers to evaluate their topographical descriptions of Asia Minor , he in turn referred to his pupil Heinrich Kiepert. The later General Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke also belonged to these Prussian officers . For this project, Kiepert traveled to Constantinople in 1841 and then visited Greece, Mysia , Lydia and the island of Lesbos . During his stay, he became seriously ill and learned the Turkish language during his recovery . When he recovered, he carried out further topographical research in Greece. Then in 1844 the "Map of Asia Minor and Turkish Armenia" was created. That was already a masterpiece.

Recognition and further orders

After his return to Berlin, he studied the Arabic , Persian and Armenian languages with the orientalist Julius Heinrich Petermann . A short time later, in 1846, Kiepert won the prize of the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres for topographical research into the theaters of war between the Roman and Neo-Persian empires on the basis of sources from ancient historians.

In 1843 Kiepert got engaged to Siglinde Jungk (1819–1900), the daughter of pastor Samuel Jungk, whom he married in 1845. In July 1843 he obtained his doctorate from the University of Jena as a whole. phil. In 1845, in order to secure his livelihood, he accepted the call to head the geographic department of the Landes-Industrie-Comptoir in Weimar , where he published numerous maps for school use. But in 1852 he returned to Berlin because the bookseller Dietrich Reimer had commissioned him to do cartographic work for his map publisher. This publisher was soon greatly upgraded by Kiepert's work. He also edited Carl Ritter's sheets on Asia for the publication “Allgemeine Gekunde”. In 1854, at the suggestion of Carl Ritter, Kiepert was appointed a member of the philosophical-historical class of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences and was thus allowed to give lectures on regional and ethnology at the university without prior habilitation . In Berlin, Kiepert also worked for the journal of the Society for Geography , for which he also contributed maps.

Professor of Geography

In 1859 the University of Munich tried to hire him for a new chair . But on the advice of Carl Ritter, Heinrich Kiepert declined this offer. After the death of Carl Ritter in the same year, Kiepert was proposed as successor alongside Ferdinand Müller and the Africa explorer Heinrich Barth . When the decision dragged on, however, the Minister of Education Theodor von Bethmann-Hollweg (1821–1886) placed him as an associate professor of geography. But then the choice fell on Heinrich Kiepert. Shortly afterwards, in 1861, his “Atlas antiquus” appeared, which was translated into many languages. In 1863 the historian Theodor Mommsen commissioned him to add maps for his Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum . In 1864 Kiepert became director of the topographical department of the royal Prussian statistical office, where he dealt with an official register of all German states and had important work to be done.

In 1869 Heinrich Kiepert accepted an order to create the attached maps to the book of Napoleon III. revise Caesar's campaigns . For this task he was even invited to the opening of the Suez Canal in November 1869 . However, this date could not be kept for financial reasons, as Kiepert wanted to combine it with the next trip to Asia Minor. In the spring of 1870 he went on this study trip to Palestine, on which the Prussian Ministry and the Academy of Sciences supported him. Together with his son Richard and the physician Paul Langerhans , he traveled to Egypt and Palestine. In the area of eastern Jordan he stayed three weeks and then sailed to the islands of Cyprus and Rhodes to then Caria explore. He also became a member of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory in 1869 . With the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War , they had to cancel their trip prematurely.

Returning to Berlin, Kiepert designed maps for his publisher Reimer for the Franco-Prussian War , which were supposed to depict the course of the war. When in 1874 the chair of geography was restored at Berlin University, Heinrich Kiepert was appointed full professor of geography. Since 1877 he was a member of the extended committee, as one of the founders of the German Palestine Association ; During this time he also contributed maps of the Baedekern Palestine and Syria (1875) and Lower Egypt (1877) for better traceability of the geographical information. Then in 1878 his most important work appeared, the textbook of ancient geography and a guide for high school students. In later years of his life he toured Pergamon , Smyrna and Lydia in 1886 and 1888 . But then he had to leave the last big task for the completion of his work to create a map of the ancient Mediterranean world to his son Richard. These were the maps for Theodor Mommsen's “Corpus Inscriptorium Latinarum” and the atlas of the ancient world “Formae orbis antiqui”.

Heinrich Kiepert died on April 21, 1899 at the age of 80 in Berlin. His son Richard partially continued his father's work. He found his final resting place in the old St. Jacobi cemetery in Berlin-Neukölln in the field JCI-61/62, G3. His grave was dedicated to the city of Berlin from 1962 to 2004 .

tomb

Honors

Kiepertstrasse in Berlin-Marienfelde is reminiscent of Heinrich Kiepert. The island of Kiepertøya , one of the Bastian Islands in the Hinlopen Strait ( Spitsbergen ), discovered by the First German North Polar Expedition in 1868 , is also named after Heinrich Kiepert. He was an honorary member of the Thuringian-Saxon Association for Geography.

Others

Heinrich Kiepert was the uncle of the later publisher Adolf Kiepert .

Works (selection)

  • Atlas of Hellas and the Hellenic Colonies . 24 sheets, Berlin 1841–1846
  • Palestine . 3 volumes, hall 1841
  • Map of Asia Minor . 6 sheets, Berlin 1843–1845
  • New hand atlas of the earth . 40 sheets, Berlin 1857–1860
  • Atlas antiquus . Berlin 1861 ( digitized version of the 5th, revised and possibly revised 1869, digitized version of the 11th, corrected edition, 1892)
  • Textbook of ancient geography . Berlin 1878
  • Guide to ancient geography . Reimer, Berlin 1879 ( digitized version )
  • Historical school atlas on ancient, middle and modern history . Reimer, Berlin 1879 ( digitized version )
  • School Atlas of the Old World . Reimer, Berlin 1883 ( digitized version )
  • Large hand atlas . Berlin 1893–1895
  • Work for Theodor Mommsen's "Corpus Inscriptorium Latinarum",
  • Formae orbis antiqui . 36 maps, Berlin 1893 ff., Continued by Richard Kiepert

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Heinrich Kiepert  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Heinrich Kiepert  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ New General Map of the Asian / Eastern Provinces of the Ottoman Empire: Without Arabia . 1884-1912. Retrieved July 25, 2013.
  2. ^ Joseph Partsch : Heinrich Kiepert. A picture of his life and his work. Teubner, Leipzig 1901, p. 11 ( digitized version ).
  3. ^ Gerhard Engelmann :  Kiepert, Heinrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 11, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1977, ISBN 3-428-00192-3 , p. 593 f. ( Digitized version ).
  4. ^ Gerhard Engelmann, biography about Heinrtich Kiepert, Neue Deutsche Biografie, Volume 11, 1977, p. 393ff. in: http: //www.deutsche-biographie.de.html
  5. ↑ Kiepertøya . In: The Place Names of Svalbard (first edition 1942). Norsk Polarinstitutt , Oslo 2001, ISBN 82-90307-82-9 (English, Norwegian).
  6. ^ Directory of the members of the Thuringian-Saxon Geography Association on March 31, 1885 ( Memento from December 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Börsenblatt for the German book trade and the branches of business related to it , 36, Vol. II, No. 157, July 10, 1869, Leipzig: Verlag des Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, 1869, pp. 2166-2167, see there the circular Adolf Kieperts of July 1st and the attached letter of recommendation from Heinrich Korn.
personal data
SURNAME Kiepert, Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kiepert, Johann Samuel Heinrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geographer and cartographer
DATE OF BIRTH July 31, 1818
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH April 21, 1899
Place of death Berlin