Ernst Wilhelm Middendorf

This article deals with the doctor and South American researcher Ernst W. Middendorf. For the brewery director of the same name (1892–1974) see Ernst W. Middendorff .

Ernst Wilhelm Middendorf

Ernst W. Middendorf (born December 13, 1830 in Keilhau , today a district of Rudolstadt in Thuringia ; † February 6, 1908 in Colombo ) was a German doctor, anthropologist and traveler who stayed in Peru for 25 years , researched and indigenous languages became a pioneer of scientific archeology in Peru.

Life

Ernst Wilhelm Middendorf was born as the son of the theologian and educator Johann Wilhelm Middendorf and his wife Albertine Froebel in 1830. Following his interest in distant countries, after studying philosophy and medicine for a few semesters, he started a trip around the world from Hamburg in 1854, which finally took him to Chile and then to Peru, where he lived in Arica from 1855 - at that time it was still part of Peru. worked for 6 years in the medical field of an American railroad construction company.

In 1862 Middendorf returned to Germany to deepen his medical studies. After his return to Lima in 1865, he began a career as a doctor and was so successful that the Peruvian Presidents Mariano Ignacio Prado and José Balta as well as Henry Meiggs were among his patients.

From 1871 he founded a trading company in Essen together with a brother. He completed linguistic and archaeological studies, traveled to Italy and Spain, and came to Peru for a third time in 1876. This time, however, he no longer practiced his profession as a doctor, but devoted himself entirely to exploring the country. Until 1888 he undertook numerous trips that took him through the diverse country of Peru and partly to Bolivia. He especially visited the archaeological sites of the coastal region and undertook four expeditions into the highlands.

After 1888 he devoted himself in Germany to the evaluation of his collections and records and the documentation of his research work, which he published between 1890 and 1895. In 1895 he donated a small collection of pre-Columbian ceramics to the Ethnographic Museum Berlin . He died on a trip to the Far East in Colombo in 1908 and was buried in Keilhau.

plant

Ancient Inca Wall.
Ernst W. Middendorf around 1885 in Kusko

As part of his linguistic work Middendorf studied in particular the indigenous South American languages Muchik (Moche), Aymara and Quechua (Keshua) and translated the play Apu Ollantay , the classic work of colonial Peruvian Quechua literature. His most important publication in this regard is a six-volume work, which appeared between 1890 and 1892 under the title The indigenous languages ​​of Peru :

• Vol. 1 (1890) The Runa Simi or the Keshua language as it is currently spoken in the province of Cuzco .
• Vol. 2 (1890) Dictionary of the Runa Simi or the Keshua language .
• Vol. 3 (1890) Ollanta, a drama in the Keshua language, translated and annotated .
• Vol. 4 (1891) Dramatic and lyrical poems of the Keshua language, collected and translated with explanatory notes .
• Vol. 5 (1891) The Aimara Language .
• Vol. 6 (1892) The Muchik or the Chimu language .

Middendorf published his geographical, historical and cultural research in a three-volume work Peru - Observations and Studies on the Country and its Inhabitants during a 25-year stay between 1893 and 1895:

• Vol. 1 (1893) Lima .
• Vol. 2 (1894) The coastal country of Peru .
• Vol. 3 (1895) The highlands of Peru .

It should be emphasized that Middendorf made descriptions, sketches and plans of the archaeological sites of Chavín de Huántar and was the first to recognize the relationship between this center in the Andean highlands and some historical sites in the coastal region, such as Pampa de las Llamas / Moxeque and Chancaillo . He postulated a "Chavín culture", a term which the "father of Peruvian archeology", Julio C. Tello , later took up again and which is still relevant today.

Middendorf's assumption that the Chavín culture was due to the existence of an extensive pre-Inca kingdom proved to be untenable. But the founding director of the Museo Nacional Chavín wrote in an article on the history of research: On the basis of his observation that there are numerous remains of monumental buildings on the coast, Middendorf concluded that there must have been similar centers in different places, which were linked by a far-reaching political organizational system . Middendorf thus anticipated the model of peer polity interaction , which is used to explain the diversity of the formative-period ceremonial centers in the central Andean region, by almost 300 years.

Honors

Because of Middendorf's contribution to the development of scientific archeology in Peru bears in Lima in excavation site Maranga , which in the Parque de las Leyendas , not only the Indian grave pyramids (huaca) is its name, but also the local archaeological museum.

The Peruvian National Library published the book Ernst W. Middendorf: vida y obra (life and work) in honor of Ernst W. Middendorf on the occasion of the 39th International Americanist Congress (XXXIX Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Lima, 2-10 August 1970 )

literature

• Dorothea Bankmann, Ulff Bankmann, Estuardo Núñez: Ernst W. Middendorf: vida y obra. Biblioteca Nacional del Perú, Lima 1970.

Web links

• Report on Ernst W. Middendorf from 2012 (span.) (Accessed on February 13, 2013)

Individual evidence

1. ^ EW Middendorf, The native languages ​​of Perus , Vol. 1–6, Brockhaus, Leipzig 1890-1892.
2. ^ EW Middendorf, Peru - Observations and studies on the country and its inhabitants during a 25-year stay , Vol. 1–3, Oppenheim, Berlin 1893-1895.
3. ↑ Peter Fux (ed.): Chavín - Peru's mysterious Andean temple. Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 2012, ISBN 978-3-85881-365-7 .
4. ↑ Christian Mesía Montenegro, The discovery of the temple and early attempts at interpretation in: Peter Fux (Ed.): Chavín - Perus mysterious Andean temple. Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 2012, ISBN 978-3-85881-365-7 , pp. 127-134 (especially p. 134).
5. ↑ Richard L. Burger, Unity and Heterogeneity within the Chavín-Horizon , in: Richard W. Keatinge (Ed.): Peruvian Prehistory: An Overview of Pre-Inca and Inca Society. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1988, ISBN 0-521-25560-0 , pp. 99-144 (especially p. 131).
6. ^ Archeological Museum Ernst W. Middendorf, Lima .
7. ↑ Dorothea banker, Ulff banker, Estuardo Núñez: Ernst W. Middendorf: vida y obra. Biblioteca Nacional del Perú, Lima 1970.