Albert from Le Coq

Albert from Le Coq

August Albert von Le Coq (also: Albrecht von Le Coq, born September 8, 1860 in Berlin ; † April 21, 1930 ibid) was a German archaeologist and Central Asia researcher.

Life

Albert von Le Coq, son of the businessman André Auguste Le Coq (1827-1894), had inherited a fortune in the form of breweries and wine cellars. After attending grammar school, he trained as an overseas merchant with stays in London and the USA (1881–1887), where he also earned a medical degree. After returning home, he became a partner in his father's seed wholesaler.

In 1900 he “retired” and began his academic training as a volunteer under Adolf Bastian at the Museum of Ethnology in Berlin. At the same time he studied Arabic, Turkish and Persian. Since 1902 in the Indian department he started an edition of Manichaean texts. The knowledge that he had acquired as a participant in Felix von Luschan's fifth expedition to Zincirli , currently Sendschirli, also helped .

Le Coq became assistant to the director of the museum's Indian department, Albert Grünwedel, and used this to plan expeditions to Central Asia, particularly to places on the Silk Road. When Grünwedel fell ill before the second Turfan expedition started in 1904, Le Coq took over the management as a substitute. Le Coq took part in the third expedition in 1906, led by Grünwedel. Le Coq was to lead the fourth of these expeditions from 1913 to 1914.

During his research trips one came across a branching network of Buddhist and Manichaean cave temples in Xinjiang . Many of the manuscripts in the caves were destroyed during the excavations. Some paintings in the caves made Le Coq speculate that it might be an Aryan (Indo-European) culture related to the Franks . He also described some of the Tarim mummies .

With the help of his assistant Theodor Bartus , Le Coq chiseled and sawed over 360 kg of frescoes, statues and other works of art and transported them to Berlin in 305 boxes. Le Coq justified these "loans" with the turmoil in Turkestan , which had been practically a non-governmental area since the late 1870s, at the time of the expeditions.

The University of Kiel awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1909. He received the title of professor in 1912. Appointed assistant director and deputy director in 1914 , he brought most of his finds from Bezeklik (柏孜克里), Túmùshūkè and Yarkhoto (雅爾 湖 故城) , in the Museum of Indian Art or Ethnological Museum on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse , where a large part was destroyed by American bombing during World War II . Some of the works of art that were not in masonry installations had been relocated and could be returned after the war. Today you are in the Museum of Asian Art of the Berlin State Museums. Like Grünwedel, he became more and more obsessed with the idea that Central Asian culture descended from the Hellenes, which Aurel Stein incited to sharp criticism.

From 1923, Le Coq was director of the Ethnographic Museum. Le Coq's grave is located in the Dahlem cemetery in Berlin .

Works

• Choros Zaturpanskij (i.e. A. v. Le Coq): Routes and results of the German Turfan expeditions. In: Oriental Archives. Hiersemann, Leipzig 3.1912, pp. 116-127.
• Chotscho , Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 1913.
• The Buddhist late antiquity in Central Asia, vol. 1: Die Plastik , Berlin: Dietrich Reimer 1922
• The Buddhist Late Antiquity in Central Asia, Vol. 2: The Manichaeischen Miniatures , Berlin: Dietrich Reimer 1923
• The Buddhist Late Antiquity in Central Asia, Vol. 3: The wall paintings , Berlin: Dietrich Reimer 1924
• The Buddhist late antiquity in Central Asia, Vol. 4: Atlas on the wall paintings , Berlin: Dietrich Reimer 1924
• The Buddhist Late Antiquity in Central Asia, Vol. 5: New Bildwerke , Berlin: Dietrich Reimer 1926
• The Buddhist Late Antiquity in Central Asia, Vol. 6: Neue Bildwerke II , Berlin: Dietrich Reimer 1928
• The Buddhist late antiquity in Central Asia, Vol. 7: Neue Bildwerke III , Berlin: Dietrich Reimer 1933
• On Hella's footsteps in East Turkistan. Reports and treatises of the II. And III. German Turfan Expedition , Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1926.
• About the country and people in East Turkestan. Reports and adventures of the 4th German Turfan Expedition. , Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1928.

literature

• The little encyclopedia . Volume 2, Encyclios-Verlag, Zurich, 1950, p. 29.
• Peter Hopkirk : Foreign Devils on the Silk Road. The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia . The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst 1980, ISBN 0-87023-435-8 .
• Volker Moeller:  Le Coq, Albert von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 36 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Heinrich G. Franz: Art and Culture along the Silk Road . Academic Printing and Publishing Company, Graz 1986, ISBN 3-201-01306-4 .
• Marianne Yaldız : Archeology and Art History of Sino-Central Asia (Xinjiang) . Brill, Leiden 1987, ISBN 90-04-07877-0 .
• Bruno J. Richtsfeld (ed.): The correspondence between Lucian Scherman and Albert von Le Coq and the reasons for the failure of a Ser India department at the Ethnographic Museum in Munich. The Indian collection of the State Museum for Ethnology Munich II; in: Munich contributions to ethnology. Yearbook of the State Museum of Ethnology in Munich. Volume 14. 2010/11. Pp. 129-193.

Web links

Commons : Albert von Le Coq  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Albert von Le Coq in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See National Museums in Berlin; Documentation of losses; especially Volume III: Museum of Indian Art, Berlin 2002