Arno Poebel

Arno Poebel (born January 26, 1881 in Eisenach , † March 3, 1958 in Chicago ) was a German ancient orientalist specializing in Sumerology , of which he is considered the founder.

After graduating from the Carl-Friedrich-Gymnasium in Eisenach, Arno Poebel studied theology and classical philology at the universities of Heidelberg , Marburg , Zurich and Jena between 1900 and 1904 . A scholarship enabled him to stay at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia in 1905/06 . There he worked on legal documents for the first time in the Sumerian language, which had only been deciphered a few years earlier . The doctorate based on this work also took place in Philadelphia in 1906, and in 1910 the habilitation at the University of Breslau . From 1911 to 1913 Poebel taught at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and edited from 1912 to 1914 other Sumerian cuneiform texts at the University of Pennsylvania Museum.

In 1919 he was appointed associate professor at the University of Rostock , where he became a full professor in 1925. In 1928 he went permanently to the USA and was initially a research associate, in 1930 professor of Assyriology and Sumerology at the University of Chicago Oriental Institute . From 1933 to 1946 he was the successor to Edward Chiera (1885-1933) from the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary . In 1946 he retired.

Poebel was particularly good at copying cuneiform texts, especially his adaptations of the clay tablets of the University of Pennsylvania Museum in the years 1912–1914 are considered outstanding work due to their precision. He significantly reconstructed the early history of Mesopotamia . The main features of Sumerian grammar published in 1923 , through which he became the founder of Sumerology, are considered to be his main work . The grammar was translated into English in 2005 and, like Poebel's studies in historical phonology, is still considered fundamental. He dealt with the linguistic peculiarities and the idioms of Sumerian. Mainly because of his capacity as editor of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary Poebel dealt with the grammar and phraseology of Akkadian . His students include Samuel Noah Kramer and Thorkild Jacobsen , through whom he continued to shape the subject of Sumerology even after his death.

Fonts

• Babylonian Legal and Business Documents. Philadelphia 1909 ( digitized ).
• Sumerian studies. Hinrichs, Leipzig 1921.
• Basics of Sumerian grammar. A. Poebel, Rostock 1923.
• Sumerian investigations. De Gruyter, Berlin 1927–1929.

literature

• Walther Sallaberger : Poebel, Arno. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Sp. 989 f.

Web links

• Literature about Arno Poebel in the state bibliography MV
• Entry on Arno Poebel in the Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium
• Entry in Kalliope on 13 letters from Arno Poebel to Carl Bezold in the Heidelberg University Library