Hertha von Dechend

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hertha von Dechend (born October 5, 1915 in Heidelberg ; † April 23, 2001 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a professor at the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences at the University of Frankfurt am Main , who was known for her theses on astronomical knowledge in the prehistoric age has been.

Life

Von Dechend studied cultural- historical ethnology with Leo Frobenius , philosophy , ancient history and archeology in Frankfurt . During and after her studies she worked at the Frobenius Institute and the Museum of Ethnology . From 1943 on she worked at the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences founded by Willy Hartner in the same year .

During her doctorate ( The cultic and mythical meaning of the pig in Indonesia and Oceania, 1939), it had become clear to her for the first time that the myths of the South Seas inhabitants could only be understood if their scientific , especially astronomical, meaning was deciphered. Generalized in her habilitation thesis ( The Myth of the Built World as an Expression of Archaic Science, 1960) and in her book The Mill of Hamlet, which was first written in English until 1969 together with Giorgio de Santillana at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was written by her claims that the original function of the myth was once to present above all astronomical connections and calendar features, before the more understandable expressions of philosophy and mathematics were found. Her thesis that even before Hipparchus there was knowledge of the precession of the equinoxes , expressed in the language of myth, was particularly controversial .

Publications

  • The cultic and mythical meaning of the pig in Indonesia and Oceania. Dissertation Frankfurt 1943.
  • with Giorgio de Santillana: Hamlet's Mill. An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time. Harvard University Press, 1969, ISBN 0-87645-008-7 ; New edition entitled Hamlet's Mill. An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And Its Transmission Through Myth . Godine, 1977, ISBN 0879232153
  • Hamlet's mill. An essay on myth and the framework of time. Kammerer and Unverzagt, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-926763-23-X . 2nd edition: Springer, Vienna & New York 1994, ISBN 3-211-82630-0
  • Il concetto di simmetria nelle culture arcaiche. In: Evandro Agazzi (ed.): La Simmetria. Il Mulino, Bologna 1973.
  • Notes on the Thunderbolt. In: Yasukatsu Maeyama, WG Saltzer (Ed.): Prismata. Studies in the history of science. Festschrift for Willy Hartner. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1977, ISBN 3-515-02683-5 , pp. 95 ff.
  • Introduction to Archaic Cosmology. Lectures in the winter semester 1976/77. Difference-Verlag, Munich 2011.

as editor:

  • Justus von Liebig in his own testimonies and those of his contemporaries. Verlag Chemie, Weinheim 1953; 2nd supplemented edition ibid. 1963

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Dechend, Hertha von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German historian and pioneer of archaeoastronomy
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Heidelberg
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 2001
Place of death Frankfurt am Main