Eduard Glaser

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Eduard Glaser

Eduard Glaser (born Elias Glaser) (born March 15, 1855 in German Rust , Böhmen ; †  May 7, 1908 in Munich ) was an Austrian explorer , orientalist and archaeologist . The focus of his research was the south of the Arabian Peninsula , especially Yemen . Glaser is considered to be one of the founders of Sabaean Studies .

Life

Eduard Glaser was born as the son of the Jewish traveling trader and farmer Salomon Glaser and his wife Maria Kohn in German Rust . The family moved to Saaz while he was still a child . The father wanted his sons to enjoy a higher education, despite the poor financial situation that had accompanied Glaser throughout his life. He first attended elementary school in Liebeschitz , Lubenz and Litschkau , then the Komotau lower secondary school and finally the Prague upper secondary school , where he acquired knowledge of several European and Arabic languages. Through the mediation of his class board, he got his first job as a private teacher. After a trip to Paris, Glaser graduated from secondary school in 1873 and studied at the Technical University of Prague until 1875 , where he studied mathematics , physics and geodesy . While still a student, he took part in the 2nd International Geography Congress in Paris, where he met prominent explorers. After completing a year of military service, Glaser enrolled at the University of Vienna in 1877 to study astronomy and Arabic studies . In 1879 he was employed for a year at the University Observatory in Währing near Vienna.

Glaser's photograph of three Yemeni men
Glaser's photograph of an Islamic lawyer from Sanaa and a tribesman from Kaukaban

At this time, at the latest, Glaser seems to have planned trips to Arabia, which is why he declined the invitation to expeditions to Africa. The Semiticist David Heinrich Müller succeeded in getting Glaser enthusiastic about research in South Arabia, which from then on would determine Glaser's life. In 1880 Glaser first went to Tunis, then two years later to Egypt. In Sohag , Upper Egypt , he observed the total solar eclipse in May 1882 . In October he traveled via Suez , Jeddah and Hodeida to Sana'a , the capital of what was then southern Arabia, where he was imprisoned for almost a year. After the end of his imprisonment, Glaser managed to establish friendly contacts with the local population and Turkish officials, who, however, also used his scientific knowledge for their own purposes. However, new problems soon emerged: the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris had only granted their financial support to Glaser's journeys on the condition that the latter should bring the inscribed material that he wanted to collect on his travels to Paris. As a result, David Heinrich Müller sent the Austrian Siegfried Langer to Yemen, whom Glaser viewed as a competitor, even though he was murdered by locals in 1882. Soon thereafter, the Paris Academy stopped its financial support, and Glaser's material did not receive the hoped-for attention from European scholars. Glaser considered his former patron Müller to be the cause of these problems and in a review of a work by Müller opened up a sharp conflict that long determined the relationship between these two scholars and isolated Glaser until they came to an agreement shortly before Glaser's death. After his first voyage in 1882–84, Glaser undertook three further expeditions to Yemen, some of them incognito (1885/86, 1887/88, 1892/94). On his travels he collected several thousand old South Arabic inscription stones and paper prints of inscriptions, which are now kept in the Vienna Art History Museum . In addition, Glaser left numerous diaries and other written records of his travels. They are kept in the National Library in Vienna.

In 1890 Glaser received an honorary doctorate from the University of Greifswald , and in the following years he also became an honorary member of various scientific societies. In the 1890s he got in touch with Theodor Herzl and suggested the establishment of a Jewish state in southern Arabia. To Herzl's negative attitude towards Glaser's proposal, the latter responded with a public criticism of Zionism. His financial problems and deteriorating health prevented Glaser from publishing the immense research material he had collected on his travels. On May 7, 1908, he suffered a fatal asthma attack in Munich, where he had lived since 1896 . He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Munich-Thalkirchen .

His written estate is in the Státní okresní archiv Louny and Regionální muzeum KA Polánka v Žatci.

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personal data
SURNAME Glaser, Eduard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian explorer, orientalist and archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 15, 1855
PLACE OF BIRTH German Rust
DATE OF DEATH May 7, 1908
Place of death Munich