German Orient Society

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German Orient Society
(DOG)
logo
purpose Oriental studies
Chair: Adelheid Otto
Establishment date: 1898
Seat : Berlin
Website: www.orient-gesellschaft.de

The German Orient Society eV (DOG) is a registered association based in Berlin .

The company was founded on January 24, 1898 in Berlin. The purpose was to promote research and stimulate public interest in the field of oriental antiquity against the background of the fact that at the end of the 19th century public interest in new discoveries in the land of the Bible had risen sharply. At the same time, it expressed the increased self-confidence of the elites of the German Reich , who no longer wanted to leave the field to the English and French alone.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the DOG supported numerous large-scale archaeological projects and contributed to establishing ancient Near Eastern studies and Near Eastern antiquity as a discipline.

The spectrum of interests extends to the cultures of the Middle East and their areas of influence, from the beginnings to the Islamic period. The history of the different areas is examined from a linguistic and archaeological point of view.

Today the DOG is the specialist representation of ancient Near Eastern and Near Eastern ancient studies in Germany. It mediates contacts with the various institutions in Germany that are active in the field of ancient Near Eastern and Middle Eastern studies.

With start-up funding or short-term grants, the DOG opens up new research perspectives for young scientists and researchers from the Middle East.

history

Former logo

Numerous well-known and wealthy people at the time were among the first members of the German Orient Society. The founding fathers included the Berlin patron James Simon and the private banker Franz von Mendelssohn , who also worked as a patron and art collector, and was the association's longstanding deputy chairman. Thanks to its diverse contacts, among other things, the DOG was able to finance cost-intensive excavations in the Orient from its own resources. In 1901, Kaiser Wilhelm II , who was very interested in archeology, took over the protectorate , so that the society subsequently received (in addition to significant government grants) considerable grants from the Imperial Disposition Fund, which helped finance further excavations. In 1907 a total of more than 350,000 marks were available.

The members of the DOG included a particularly large number of people of Jewish origin, including its long-time secretary, the private scholar Bruno Güterbock . It was all the more affected by the persecution of the “Third Reich” , so that it initially sank into insignificance.

The DOG was re-established in 1947 and celebrated its centenary in 1998 with a ceremony in the Pergamon Hall on Museum Island in the presence of Federal President Roman Herzog .

Since the 1990s, colloquia with lectures by international scholars have been held every two years under one main topic at the various university locations in Germany.

The chairman of the society is Prof. Dr. Adelheid Otto .

Excavations

The early excavations supported by the DOG included work in the ancient oriental capitals of Assur , Babylon , Hattusa and Tell el-Amarna .

With the research of Babylon , a company could be started immediately after it was founded, which caused a sensation worldwide. From 1899 to 1917, under the direction of Robert Koldewey, such important buildings as the processional street of Babylon with the Ishtar Gate , the palaces of Nebuchadnezzar , the famous Tower of Babel and, according to Koldewey, could be visited there today in the Vorderasiatisches Museum within the Berlin Pergamon Museum who have favourited Semiramis Hanging Gardens are uncovered.

In addition to the research in Babylon, the favorable financial situation, including the personal commitment of the emperor, particularly benefited the excavations in Assur , which led to significant results from 1903 to 1914 under the direction of Walter Andrae . Some of the finds, which have been kept in the Pergamon Museum (Department of the Vorderasiatisches Museum ) in Berlin since the mid-1920s , have not yet been fully scientifically processed.

As early as 1902, excavations had started in Egypt on behalf of the German Orient Society, where excavations were carried out under Ludwig Borchardt in the pyramid field of Abusir , then, under the same researcher, in Achet-Aton ( Tell el-Amarna ) from 1911 to 1914 . In 1906 Hugo Winckler was able to prove that the ruins of Bogazköy contained the capital of the Hittite Empire, Hattuša . Until 1911/12 he was able to achieve rich results.

In addition to this research in some of the largest capitals of ancient oriental cultures, interrupted by the world wars, excavations are taking place at various ruins in the Middle East, such as Borsippa , Hatra , Jericho , Kar-Tukulti-Ninurta , Uruk and Zincirli .

In the 1970s, the DOG was involved in Syria and Anatolia, especially in numerous rescue excavations such as exploring the ancient settlements of Habuba Kabira , Ekalte ( Tall Munbaqa ) or Tuttul ( Tall Bi'a ), of Samuha ( Kayalıpınar ) or Sarissa ( Kuşaklı ).

One of the most significant discoveries in recent times funded by the DOG was the work in the Grand Palace of Qatna (Tall Mišrife), which houses several untouched royal tombs from the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. Were found.

Although fieldwork has become difficult in some areas of the Middle East due to the political situation, the DOG continues to strive for scientific research into the Orient. The Assur project started in 1997, for example, has the aim of processing all old finds from Assur and has already produced numerous publications.

Publications

Periodicals

Series of publications

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ http://www.orient-gesellschaft.de/dog.html