Teheran branch of the German Archaeological Institute

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The Tehran branch of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) was founded in 1961 as an independent department of the DAI and in 1996 it was incorporated into the Eurasia department founded the year before . From here the regular field research of the DAI in Iran that has been taking place since 2000 , z. B. in Arisman and Darre-ye Bolaghi organized. At the same time, the branch is a point of contact for German and Iranian scholars of classical studies. The field of work includes the archeology of Iran from prehistory to the Islamic period.

History and tasks

The establishment of what was then the Tehran Department of the German Archaeological Institute was based on many years of German research in Iran, for example by Ernst Herzfeld , Friedrich Sarre , Waldemar Belck and Carl Ferdinand Friedrich Lehmann-Haupt . Between the two world wars, when other DAI departments such as B. were opened in Cairo , this was not possible in Tehran for cost reasons. In 1937, however, a base of the German Archaeological Institute in Isfahan , headed by Wilhelm Eilers , was established, although it had to be closed again in September 1941 after the British-Russian invasion . Part of the book collection later ended up in the library of the Baghdad department of the DAI. In 1957 the first exploratory expedition was carried out in northwestern Iran and at the same time negotiations began to establish a department in Tehran. After the first excavations on the Tacht-e Suleiman in 1959, a first building for the institute in central Tehran was rented in 1960, in which the department was officially opened on September 22, 1962. In 1973 the department moved to a larger area in the Vanak district . The branch now resides in the Elahiyeh district.

The political situation in Iran after the Iranian Revolution in 1979 made it difficult or even impossible for German employees to stay at the Tehran branch, so that they had to be seconded to Germany. After the termination of the bilateral cultural agreement in 1987, the department was closed. Therefore excavations and other field research were temporarily suspended. Since then, the scientists at the DAI Tehran have carried out their work from Berlin and only travel to Tehran for shorter research stays. The department, which was restricted in its work on site in this way, was finally integrated into the Eurasia department as a branch in 1996. Previously strongly influenced by classical archaeologists and building researchers , the branch office was given a new focus in 1997 with the interdisciplinary project Ancient Mining and Metallurgy in the western Iranian highlands, increasingly towards prehistoric archeology , including archaeometric methods . The branch has been supporting the Iranian Authority for Cultural Heritage, Traditional Handicrafts and Tourism with rescue excavations since 2005, for example in the Sivand Dam area from 2005 to 2006 (project: Darre-ye Bolaghi) and organizes workshops and conferences in the country.

Directors and Heads of the Branch Office

Library and photo library

The library of the Tehran department has grown steadily since its foundation, so that in 1981 the collection already comprised 14,250 volumes. When the Eurasia Department was founded, some of the books were transferred to Berlin. Today there are in the library of Tehran Branch about 11,000 volumes from various collection areas like Near Eastern art history and archeology , architectural history , ancient history , Iranian and Islamic archeology and history.

The photo library includes an extensive collection of photographs on Iranian archeology and art history as well as documentation of the excavations carried out by the department in Bisutun , Bastam , Tacht-e Suleiman, Zendan-i Suleiman and Firuzabad . It is currently kept in the Eurasia Department in Berlin. A selection of images can be viewed online in the Arachne image database .

Publications

The series of journals Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan ( Archaeological Messages from Iran until 1996 ) has been published annually since 1968 . It contains essays on the archeology of Iran and the areas bordering it to the north and east in German, English and French. The series of monographs Archeology in Iran and Turan has been published since 1997 and deals with topics of archeology in Iran and the steppe regions bordering to the north and east.

literature

  • Wolfram Kleiss: The German Archaeological Institute, Tehran Department. In: Persica. Jaarboek van het Genootschap Nederland-Iran. 10, 1982, pp. 292-296.
  • Wolfram Kleiss: German Archaeological Institute. In: Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. 7, 1994, pp. 331-333 online
  • Dietrich Huff: Germany ii. Archeological excavations and studies. In: Encyclopaedia Iranica. Vol. 10, Fasc. 5, 2001, pp. 519-530 ( online ).
  • Barbara Helwing, Patricia Rahemipour (eds.): Tehran 50. Half a century of German archaeologists in Iran (= archeology in Iran and Turan. Volume 11). Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Darmstadt 2011, ISBN 978-3-8053-4506-4 .

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ^ Image database Arachne, start page
  2. ↑ Archaeological reports from Iran and Turan on the DAI homepage ( Memento from July 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Archaeological reports from Iran and Turan on the Reimer-Verlag website
  4. ↑ Archeology in Iran and Turan on the DAI homepage ( Memento from June 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ http://www.zabern.de/sixcms/detail.php?template=suchresult_neu&reihe=Archäologie in Iran und Turan (K) (Link not available)