Elvira Fölzer

Elvira Fölzer, 1909

Elvira Fölzer (born June 26, 1868 in Wandsbek ; † around 1928 in Berlin ) was a German classical archaeologist .

Elvira Fölzer was born into an upper-class Hamburg merchant family. Her father had good relations with South America, especially with Brazil, from where the mother may have come from. Elvira Fölzer attended secondary school for girls. When, towards the end of the 19th century, women in Germany were also able to take their Abitur, in 1899, at the age of 31, she acquired the right to study at the municipal high school in Dresden-Neustadt . Then she began to study Classical Archeology, Classical Philology and Art History at the Universities of Leipzig , Freiburg and Bonn . On June 25, 1906, Georg Loeschcke received his doctorate , who was one of the few German professors for classical archeology who also accepted women and who, in addition to Fölzer, also received his doctorate from Margarete Bieber , Charlotte Fränkel , Margret Heinemann and Viktoria von Lieres and Wilkau . The subject of Fölzer's dissertation was Die Hydria . A contribution to Greek vase science . The application for the travel grant from the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) was rejected twice due to Fölzer's age. However, her gender was no obstacle after discussions, even though she was the first woman to ever apply for a travel grant. A year later it was awarded to a woman for the first time, Carola Barth . In the summer of 1907 she became a research assistant at the Provincial Museum in Trier . Here she switched from researching Greek to Roman ceramics. She was paid 150 Reichsmarks a day for six hours of work. Her employment contract did not give her the right to a later permanent position. In 1910 she also took on a job as an art teacher at a secondary school for girls and also held lecture courses on ancient art and culture for women.

Fölzer initially worked primarily on the finds that had accumulated since the beginning of the sewer system in Trier in 1899. Only a little later, she worked on the Trier Terra Sigillata , both the new finds and the old holdings. Only the potter's stamps were excluded from processing, as this was reserved for August Oxé , but never published. From 1907 Fölzer was able to undertake several study trips to southern Germany and France, where she recorded the holdings of the Terra Sigillata. In return, she often received original pieces or casts. Since 1909 she had to take on more and more other work in the museum, as she was the only assistant at the museum. She dealt with the small bronzes from Trier and the tombs from Neumagen . When permanent assistant director positions were to be filled in 1911 and 1918, however, these were filled with men. In 1913 she published her work on The Picture Bowls of the East Gallic Sigillata Manufactories . For this work, Fölzer became a corresponding member of the DAI in 1914 . After Margarete Bieber the year before, she was only the second female member of the DAI. The work also drew Hans Dragendorff's attention to Fölzer, who initially invited her to the Roman-Germanic Commission in Frankfurt am Main as a visiting researcher . Other researchers like Robert Knorr were less favored by her and delayed Fölzer's publications due to their allegedly lesser importance for the city's history. Your research on the southern Gaulish terra sigillata was finally no longer printed because it was no longer up to date. Eventually she had to leave the museum in 1916. After that she probably worked as a teacher in Frankfurt, where she lived until 1926. From 1927 at the latest, she has been proven to be a private teacher in Berlin. Since the middle of the second decade, Fölzer had been sick again and again and never fully recovered; in the late 1920s her condition worsened. It appears in the Berlin address books for the last time in 1928, at which time it must have died. As this was not known to the DAI, she was excluded from the DAI in 1938 like all Jews.

Fölzer was one of the first women in Germany who could make a name for herself in archeology, but without attaining a professional position in this subject. Her book on the East Gaulish Sigillata is a standard work to this day.

literature

• Lothar Wickert : Contributions to the history of the German Archaeological Institute 1879 to 1929 , Zabern, Mainz 1979, pp. 16-17. 173
• Jürgen Merten: Elvira Fölzer and research into Roman ceramics in Trier . In: Finds and excavations in the district of Trier 25 (1993), pp. 44–56 (with bibliography and picture)
• Jürgen Merten: Fölzer, Elvira . In: Trier Biographical Lexicon , Trier 2000, p. 117
• Irma Wehgartner : Searching for clues. Women in Classical Archeology before the First World War , In: Julia K. Koch, Eva-Maria Mertens (editor): A lady between 500 gentlemen. Johanna Mestorf - work and effect , Waxmann, Münster a. a. 2002 ISBN 3-8309-1066-5 (women, research, archeology, volume 4) pp. 273–274 (with picture)
• Andrea Rottloff : Archaeologists ( The Famous Series ), Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2009, ISBN 978-3-8053-4063-2 , pp. 124–127
• Jürgen Merten: Elvira Fölzer (* 1868). On the social and professional environment of an early Trier archaeologist. In: Jana Esther Fries , Doris Gutsmiedl-Schümann (ed.): Excavators, researchers, pioneers. Selected portraits of early archaeologists in the context of their time. Waxmann, Münster a. a. 2013, ISBN 978-3-8309-2872-0 , pp. 119-139 (with picture)

Individual evidence

1. ^ On the date of death Merten 2013, p. 132.
2. ↑ Merten 2013, p. 132.