German-Turkish Monument Protection Command

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The German-Turkish Monument Protection Command for Syria and Palestine was affiliated with the German Asia Corps and carried out numerous scientific surveys and building surveys of ancient times during the Palestine campaign in the area of ​​today's Syria , Lebanon , Israel , Jordan , Egypt and the Palestinian Autonomous Areas from 1916 to 1918 Monuments through. It was founded by Cemal Pasha , the commander-in-chief of the 4th Turkish Army, on November 1, 1916 with its seat in Damascus .

Order and employees

The command had the following tasks:

"1. Creation of a reliable monitoring point for the preservation of the art monuments.
 2. Prevention of harmful new buildings inside and in the immediate vicinity of old structures, cleaning up the ruins, prohibiting the population from using the ruins as building material.
 3. Improvement of the access roads to the ruins and the creation of suitable accommodation to facilitate the visit for locals and foreigners.
 4. Collection of antiquities within the army zone. "

The command was led by the archaeologist Theodor Wiegand (1864-1936), who was stationed as captain of the Landwehr artillery in Damascus. The main places of work in Syria and Palestine were the Sinai and the Negeb ( Schivta / Subeita, Tel Nizzana / Nessana, Avdat / Oboda and others), Petra (Wadi Musa), Baalbek , northern Syria , Palmyra , Jerusalem , Amman and Damascus. The building surveys were partly carried out in connection with mapping that was already considered necessary by the military.

In the summer of 1918, the Monument Protection Command took in archaeological remains of the imperial palaces of Constantinople ( Istanbul ), which had been partially exposed after a fire disaster in 1912.

Employees in the German-Turkish Monument Protection Command were among others

  • Albrecht Alt (1883–1956), Protestant theologian (Old Testament scholar) and Palestinian scholar.
  • Walter Bachmann (1883–1958), architect and building researcher
  • Ernest Mamboury (1878–1953), Swiss draftsman and drawing teacher
  • Uvo Hölscher (1878–1963), architect, building researcher and Egyptologist
  • Hans von Ramsay (1862–1938), Africa explorer, cartographer
  • Oscar Reuther (1880–1954), architect and building researcher
  • Wilhelm Schubart (1873–1960), philologist and papyrologist
  • Karl Stöckle (1872–1931), 1916–1918 director of the School of Applied Arts (Madrasat aṣ-Ṣanā'iʿ) in Damascus
  • Eckhard Unger (1884–1966), ancient orientalist and Near Eastern archaeologist
  • Carl Watzinger (1877–1948), classical archaeologist
  • Franz Heinrich Weißbach (1865–1944), ancient orientalist
  • Emil Werth (1869–1958), botanist, agricultural scientist and ethnologist
  • Karl Wulzinger (1886–1949), architect and building researcher

For the first time, Wiegand used aerial photos for documentation that were obtained with kite aerial photography or by reconnaissance aircraft of the Asian Corps. In some cases, despite the limited time, makeshift restoration measures were carried out, e.g. B. in April 1917 at the magnificent gate of Palmyra with the help of Armenian construction soldiers.

The results of the building surveys and investigations were not only published in the scientific publications of the German-Turkish Monument Protection Command , but also in some cases later in separate publications by the employees.

The Austrian art historian Hans Sedlmayr (1896–1984), who had been assigned as an artillery observer to Austria-Hungary's troops in Palestine , also received a lot of inspiration from the work of the Monument Protection Command . As an Austrian officer, the engineer Harry Spanner carried out an initial survey of Resafa from September 3 to 8, 1918 .

Monument protection activities in Istanbul 1918

In Istanbul, the German journalist and art historian Dr Friedrich Schrader worked in a municipal commission of Constantinople from the end of 1917 to record and catalog Islamic and Byzantine architectural monuments. At that time, Schrader was in close contact with Wiegand and the Monument Protection Command, and the Wiegand estate contained a letter in which the Istanbul expert Schrader answered Wiegand's technical questions.

The commission was founded in 1917 on the initiative of the then General Director of the Archaeological Museum , Halil Edhem Eldem . Schrader headed this commission from the spring of 1918, whose task it was to compile a classified list of all the monuments of the then Turkish capital. Together with a team of Turkish experts, Schrader systematically recorded buildings in the city that were damaged and threatened by the effects of war. On the basis of archaeological investigations, research and surveys of the residents, information about the monuments was systematically recorded and photographed by Hagop Iskender , the owner of the photo studio Sebah et Joaillier who was involved in the project . Valuable components were salvaged and secured in the city's archaeological museum. Since Schrader had to leave the city in November 1918 as a result of the Allied occupation, the work could not be completed.

Publications

  • Theodor Wiegand (ed.): Scientific publications of the German-Turkish monument protection command. (6 booklets). Berlin / Leipzig: de Gruyter 1920–1924:
    • Book 1: Sinai. with 8 plates and 142 illustrations in the text, by Theodor Wiegand with contributions by Friedrich Freiherr Kreß von Kressenstein , Wilhelm Schubart, Carl Watzinger and Karl Wulzinger. Berlin / Leipzig 1920.
    • Booklet 2: The Greek inscriptions of the Palestine Tertia west of the ʿAraba . with 10 illustrations in the text. by Albrecht Alt. Berlin / Leipzig 1921.
    • Issue 3: Petra. with 2 enclosures and 79 illustrations in the text. by Walter Bachmann, Carl Watzinger, Theodor Wiegand and Karl Wulzinger. Berlin / Leipzig 1921.
    • Book 4: Damascus. The ancient city. with 3 plates and 85 illustrations in the text. by Karl Wulzinger and Carl Watzinger. Berlin / Leipzig 1921.
    • Book 5: Damascus. The Islamic city. with 62 plates and sketches (including 3 plans) and 57 illustrations in the text. by Karl Wulzinger and Carl Watzinger. Berlin / Leipzig 1924.
    • Book 6: The monuments and inscriptions at the mouth of the Nahr el-Kelb . with 16 illustrations in the text and 14 plates. by Franz Heinrich Weißbach. Berlin / Leipzig 1922.
      • were planned, but were no longer implemented than other issues:
      • Issue 7 recordings on Palmyra. by Carl Watzinger, Theodor Wiegand and Karl Wulzinger.
      • Issue 8 Results of a trip in Northern Syria.
      • Booklet 9: The Arab House. by Oscar Reuther.
  • Ernst Mamboury, Theodor Wiegand (arr.): The Imperial Palaces of Constantinople between the Hippodrome and the Marmara Sea , with the assistance of Uvo Hölscher and Karl Wulzinger with a contribution by Eckhard Unger, ed. from the Archaeological Institute of the German Empire. Istanbul Department. de Gruyter, Berlin / Leipzig: de Gruyter 1934 ( Google Books ; limited preview)
  • Albrecht Alt: From the war work of German science in Palestine. In: Journal of the German Palestine Association 43 (1920). Pp. 93-108.
  • Ahmed Djemal Pascha , Theodor Wiegand: Ancient monuments from Syria, Palestine and Western Arabia / Sūrīa wa-Falasṭīn wa-ġarbī ʻArabistān ābidāt-i-ʻatīqasy. 100 panels with descriptive text. German and Turkish Berlin. Published by Georg Reimer 1918.
  • Theodor Wiegand: The ancient culture of the Sinai peninsula. In: Between the Caucasus and Sinai. (Yearbook of the Federation of Asian Fighters 1921). Berlin. Deutsche Orientbuchhandlung Mulzer & Cleemann 1920. pp. 55–64.
  • Theodor Wiegand (Ed.): Palmyra - Results of the Expeditions of 1902 and 1917, Vol. I. Textband , Vol. II. Tafelband (Archaeological Institute of the German Empire, Istanbul Department). with 183 illustrations in the text and a map. by Daniel Krencker , Otto Puchstein , Bruno Schulz , Carl Watzinger, Theodor Wiegand and Karl Wulzinger. Berlin. Published by Heinrich Keller 1932.
  • Theodor Wiegand (Ed.): Baalbek. Results of the excavations and investigations in the years 1898–1905. (3 volumes in 4 parts). Berlin / Leipzig. de Gruyter 1921–1925.

literature

  • Theodor Wiegand, Marie Wiegand: Half moon in the last quarter. Letters and travel reports from ancient Turkey by Theodor and Marie Wiegand 1895 to 1918 , ed. by Gerhard Wiegand. Bruckmann, Munich 1970 (2nd edition (cultural history of the ancient world 29). Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1985 ISBN 3-8053-0845-0 )
  • Theodor Wiegand: Monument protection and art history work during the World War in Syria, Palestine and Western Arabia . In: Paul Clemen (ed.): Art protection in war. Reports on the condition of the art monuments in the various theaters of war and on the German and Austrian measures for their preservation, rescue and research , Vol. II The theaters of war in Italy, in the east and south-east , Leipzig: Seemann 1919, pp. 174-190
  • Paul Karge: From the German-Turkish monument protection in Palestine . In: Theologische Revue 22 (1923), pp. 1-4
  • Peter Thomsen: The more recent research in Palestine-Syria and their significance for religious education (collection of generally understandable lectures and writings from the field of theology and religious history 114), Tübingen, Mohr 1925
  • Charlotte Trümpler : The German-Turkish Monument Protection Command and the aerial photo archeology , in: Charlotte Trümpler (Hrsg.): The big game. Archeology and Politics at the Time of Colonialism (1860–1940) , Essen 2008, pp. 474–483, ISBN 3-8321-9063-5 .
  • Friedhelm Hartwig: Researcher behind enemy lines . In: epoc - The magazine for archeology and history 05/10 (2010), pp. 52–57

proof

  1. ↑ From the foreword by Cemal Pascha to: Ahmed Djemal Pascha / Theodor Wiegand, Alte Denkmäler (op. Cit. O) , unpaginated.
  2. ↑ From St. Georgen, 1910 trade teacher in Bretten, 1930 transferred from Offenburg to Freiburg.
  3. ↑ From Vienna, 1908 co-founder of the Aërosektion des Österreichischer Automobil-Klub (Wiener Luftschiffer-Zeitung 7, 1908, p. 95), 1917 to 1918 as first lieutenant commander of the Austrian army in Aleppo ; also known as a portrait painter; see. Arthur Breycha-Vauthier : Austria in the Levante , Vienna / Munich, Herold 1972, p. 91.
  4. ↑ Harry Spanner / Samuel Guyer , Ruṣāfa. The pilgrimage city of St. Sergios (Research on Islamic Art 4), ed. by Friedrich Sarre , Berlin, Dietrich Reimer Verlag 1926.
  5. ^ Friedrich Schrader: The art monuments of Constantinople. In: Der Neue Orient Volume 5, 1919, pp. 302–304 and 352–354