Ernst Berger (archaeologist)

Grave in the Hörnli cemetery , Riehen, Basel-Stadt

Ernst Berger (born February 26, 1928 in Basel ; died March 24, 2006 there ) was a Swiss classical archaeologist .

Berger, son of Fritz Berger , studied classical philology at the University of Basel from autumn 1948 , and from 1950 classical archeology with Karl Schefold . In 1951 he moved to the University of Munich , where he received his doctorate in September 1955 with Ernst Buschor with a thesis on the reconstruction of the Parthenon east gable. For 1955/56 he was the first and only Swiss citizen to receive the travel grant from the German Archaeological Institute , which he and Otto Lendle and Peter Herrmann donated from Italy to Tunisia to Libya, Egypt, Syria and finally to Turkey led. He was then a member of the Swiss Institute in Rome from 1956 to 1957, assistant to Ernst Langlotz in Bonn from 1957 to 1959 and curator of the Kassel Antikensammlung from 1960 to 1961 .

In October 1961 he was appointed founding director of the Antikenmuseum Basel , which he built up together with Margot Schmidt from 1962 and was able to inaugurate in 1966. In addition, from 1961 he was head of the Basel Sculpture Hall , in which, over the years, he brought together a unique collection of all preserved building sculptures of the Parthenon in plaster casts. Thanks to the collection and an attached reconstruction workshop, he developed the sculpture hall into a central research facility for Parthenon research in particular and research into classical sculpture in general. The highlight of this scientific collecting activity was the 1982 international Parthenon Congress. Berger, who completed his habilitation in 1960 at the University of Friborg , taught as a private lecturer from 1962 and as an associate professor at the University of Basel from 1968. He retired in 1993. For his scientific achievements he received honorary doctorates from the universities of Würzburg in 1997 and Athens in 1998.

Ernst Berger had been married to the Berlin-born classical archaeologist Gratia Berger-Doer (born November 16, 1936 - February 12, 2003) since 1961, with whom he had two sons and a daughter.

Fonts (selection)

• Parthenon east pediment. Preliminary remarks on a reconstruction. Bouvier, Bonn 1959
• The Basel doctor's relief. Studies of the Greek grave and votive relief around 500 BC And to pre-Hippocratic medicine. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1970
• Publisher: Parthenon Congress Basel. Papers and reports April 4 to 8, 1982. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1984
• The Parthenon in Basel: 1. Documentation on the metopes. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1986
• The Parthenon in Basel: Documentation on the frieze. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1996
• Editor: Antique works of art from the Ludwig Collection. 3 volumes. Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1979–1990
• Editor: The artist's design. Sculpture canon in ancient and modern times. Exhibition catalog Antikenmuseum Basel and Collection Ludwig. Antikenmuseum Basel and the Ludwig Collection, Basel 1992

literature

• Margot Schmidt (Ed.): Canon. Festschrift Ernst Berger. Association of Friends of Ancient Art, Basel 1988 (pp. VII – VIII list of publications).
• Peter Blome , Barbara L. Begelsbacher: Ernst Berger . In: Antike Kunst 50, 2007, pp. 3–8 (with list of publications).

Web links

• Literature by and about Ernst Berger in the catalog of the German National Library
• Obituary of the Archaeological Seminar of the University of Basel
• Obituary from the Basel Sculpture Hall

Remarks

1. ↑ Peter Herrmann, Norbert Erhardt, Eva Herrmann: Letters from the archaeological-epigraphic scholarship trip 1955-56 in the countries of the Mediterranean. Munich 2008, p. 12.