Adolf Erman

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Adolf Erman around 1929

Johann Peter Adolf Erman ([ ɛʀˈmɑ̃ ]; born October 31, 1854 in Berlin ; † June 26, 1937 ibid), actually Jean Pierre Adolphe Erman, was a German Egyptologist and founder of the Berlin School of Egyptology . He initiated and directed the project of the dictionary of the Egyptian language .

life and work

On his father's side, Erman came from the Huguenot family Erman , which developed into a scholarly dynasty in Berlin. He was the son of Georg Adolf Erman , professor of physics at the University of Berlin , and the grandson of the physicist Paul Erman and his wife Caroline, née Hitzig. His mother Johanne Marie Bessel was a daughter of the Königsberg astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel .

He attended the French high school in Berlin . After graduating from high school, he studied Egyptology with Georg Ebers at the University of Leipzig . Like his brothers, he became a member of the Leipzig fraternity Germania . He switched to the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin and heard Richard Lepsius . From 1884 to 1914 he was director of the Egyptian Museum Berlin . In 1885 he became an associate professor for Egyptology at the University of Berlin; he was professor there from 1892 to 1923; In 1934 he was expelled from the faculty because he was considered a “ quarter Jew ” because of his grandmother Caroline Hitzig .

As director of the museum, he published regular publications on the collections in the communications from the Oriental collections that had been published since 1889 . Since 1882 he published the magazine for Egyptian language and antiquity together with Heinrich Brugsch . From 1888 he was a member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

In his dissertation Erman dealt with the plural forms of Egyptian. He discovered the relationship of the Egyptian language to the Semitic languages in terms of grammar. In the history of the Egyptian language, he recognized the sharp cut in the transition to the New Egyptian language level. For this and the previous classical Middle Egyptian level (with Erman still: ancient Egyptian ) he created grammars for the first time.

tomb

Under the leadership of Erman, the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences , the Saxon Academy of Sciences , the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen and the Bavarian Academy of Sciences applied to the German Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1897 for a project for a new Egyptian dictionary. Georg Steindorff signed for Leipzig, Georg Ebers for Munich, Richard Pietschmann , a pupil of Lepsius and Ebers , for Göttingen . As constant excavations of temples and graves unearthed vast amounts of new texts, Erman wanted to start from scratch without taking into account the state of Heinrich Brugsch's dictionaries that had been reached by then. The dictionary of the Egyptian language was published from 1926 to 1931 in five volumes and two supplementary volumes. Even today it is still largely a valid collection of the words written in hieroglyphics based on the monuments of Karl Richard Lepsius . Erman's students Hermann Grapow and Kurt Sethe were also involved .

The Ancient Egyptian religion was Erman distanced approach. Since his youth, Erman also wrote small unpublished poems and novels. In 1918 he was accepted into the order Pour le Mérite for sciences and arts . In 1927 he received the Bavarian Maximilian Order . In 1932 he was elected a corresponding member of the British Academy .

Erman married Käthe d'Heureuse on October 11, 1884. Erman is buried in the Dahlem forest cemetery. His grave is dedicated to the city ​​of Berlin as an honorary grave .

Fonts

literature

Web links

Commons : Adolf Erman  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ [Hirschfeld, Adolf / Franke, August]: History of the Leipzig Burschenschaft Germania 1859-1879. Ceremony for the twentieth foundation festival on July 25, 26, 27 and 28, 1879 . o. O. o. J. (Leipzig 1879), p. 73, no. 275
  2. ^ Knaake, Emil / Thiele, Wolfgang / Tornius, Valerian / Leonhardt, Hans (arr.): History of the Leipzig fraternity Germania 1818-1928 . Leipzig undated (1928), p. 216
  3. ↑ Harald Lönnecker : "The topic was and remained without parallel appearance in German historical research". The Burschenschaftliche Historische Kommission (BHK) and the Gesellschaft für Burschenschaftliche Geschichtsforschung e. V. (GfbG) (1898 / 1909-2009). A history of people, institutions and science (presentations and sources on the history of the German unity movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, vol. 18), Heidelberg 2009, pp. 93, 104-107, 109, 130, 132, 221, 343 f.
  4. ↑ 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. 77.
  5. ↑ Wolfgang Schenkel : Introduction to Ancient Egyptian Linguistics. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1990, p. 20.
  6. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 25, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Erman, Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Erman, Johann Peter Adolf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Egyptologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1854
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 1937
Place of death Berlin