François Lenormant

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François Lenormant (born January 17, 1837 in Paris , † December 9, 1883 ibid) was a French historian and archaeologist , at the same time one of the main exponents of Assyriology in France.

Life

François Lenormant was a son of the archaeologist and Egyptologist Charles Lenormant , who strove from an early age that his son would follow in his footsteps. At the age of six, François Lenormant was given lessons in Greek at the instigation of his father. He lived up to expectations and, on the basis of his good memory and tireless diligence, acquired an encyclopedic scholarship early on. His activities extended to archeology, numismatics and epigraphy of classical and oriental antiquity, to Assyriology and the history of the ancient Orient, but also included other areas more closely or loosely connected to these subjects, including Egyptology . In the field of archeology, at the age of 14, he wrote a treatise in the Revue archéologique on Greek tablets that were found in Memphis ( Tablettes grecques trouvées à Memphis , 1851). As a numismatist, he first made himself known in 1857 with the monograph on the coins of the Lagides ( Essai sur la classification des monnaies des Lagides ), which was awarded by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and published in the Revue numismatique . Already at a young age he also emerged through an essay on the Christian origin of the Sinaitischen inscriptions ( Sur l'origine chrétienne des inscriptions sinaïtiques , in: Journal asiatique , vol. 13, Paris 1859). In addition to his preoccupation with classical studies, he also attended lectures at the law faculty and in 1857 received the title of licensed.

In 1858 Lenormant visited Italy and then accompanied his father on a research trip to Greece in 1859, during which his father died of a feverish illness in Athens on November 22, 1859 . Lenormant brought his father's body back to France, but soon went back to Greece and examined the ruins of ancient Eleusis there on behalf of the government . Meanwhile, he heard of a massacre of Christians by the Druze and immediately sailed to Syria to come to the aid of the victims of this religious fanaticism. After the arrival of French troops in Syria, he returned to Eleusis. As a result of his research there, he published, among other things, the treatise Recherches archéologiques à Eleusis (Paris 1862). From 1862 he was the sub-librarian of the Institut de France . In 1865 and 1866 he again traveled to the East and in 1869 Egypt, where he familiarized himself with the antiquities there. His research was interrupted in 1870 by the Franco-Prussian War , in which Lenormant served in the French army and was wounded during the siege of Paris . In 1874 he was appointed Professor of Archeology at the National Library to Charles Ernest Beulé's post and lectured on Greek and Middle Eastern antiquities.

In 1881 Lenormant became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. He had a serious accident on a research trip to Calabria and died of the consequences of this accident after a long illness on December 9, 1883 at the age of almost 47 in Paris.

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From Lenormant's archaeological writing, apart from the above-mentioned treatise on Eleusinian antiquities, mention should be made of his monograph de la voie sacrée éleusinienne (1864), which deals with this very area , as well as his numerous essays written between 1864 and 1883 in the Revue archéologique and other journals, mythological articles in the von Daremberg and Saglio published Dictionnaire des Antiquités Grecques et Romaines , and a large part of the text of by him in 1875, together with the Baron de Witte founded Archaeological Gazette . The works La grande Grèce, paysages et histoire (3 vols., 1881–84) and À travers l'Apulie et la Lucanie (3 vols., 1881–84) from his travels in southern Italy (1879, 1881 and 1882) should also be counted here . Paris 1883).

In the field of numismatics he published numerous individual studies, particularly in the Revue numismatique . His work in this regard is summarized in the work La monnaie dans l'Antiquité (3 vols., Paris 1878–79, but unfinished; new edition. 1896); only after his death did the popular book Monnaies et médailles (1883) appear.

In addition to the work De l'origine et de la propagation de l'alphabet phénicien dans l'ancien monde (unfinished in 2 volumes and the beginning of the 3rd volume, 2nd edition 1872) , Lenormant devoted many publications and to ancient writing and epigraphy Discussions of inscriptions in the Revue archéologique and other journals.

Since the late 1860s, Lenormant delved into Assyriology and ancient oriental history. His best-known work, Manuel d'histoire ancienne de l'Orient jusqu'au guerres Médiques (3 vols., Paris 1868-69, with atlas; 9th ed.), Was published as early as 1868, which was awarded by the Academy and regarded by him as one of his main works 1881–83; continued after Lenormant's death by Babelon, vol. 4–6, 1885–88; edited in German by M. Busch, 2nd ed. 3 vol., Leipzig 1871–72). From cuneiform finds he recognized Akkadian as a newly discovered language , which was spoken in Mesopotamia before 2000 BC. Was spoken of.

Lenormant's assyriological studies were summarized on a larger scale in the Lettres assyriologiques et épigraphiques sur l'histoire et les antiquités de l'Asie antérieure (5 vols., 1871-80), the first series of which consists of individual treatises with different contents, while the second the Akkadian ( Sumerian ) research contains lenormants ( Études accadiennes , 3 vols., 1873, 1874 and 1879). This series also includes Les principes de comparaison de l'Accadien et des langues touraniennes (1875) and La langue primitive de la Chaldée et les idiomes touraniens (Paris 1875), in which he tried to prove that Akkadian belonged to the so-called Uralalta language tribe what could not be achieved with the method he adopted; also Étude sur quelques parties des syllabaires cunéiformes (1877), as well as larger treatises in particular in the Journal asiatique .

Lenormant's work Les origines de l'histoire d'après la Bible et les traditions des peuples orientaux (3 vols., Paris 1880–83) achieved great fame . The author found it impossible to maintain the assumption of uniformity in the design of the books of the Pentateuch . He claimed that there were certain traces of the existence of two different original documents, an Elohist and a Yahwist , which had served as the basis for the final editing of the first four books of the Pentateuch; and he contented himself with establishing a certain concordance between them. According to him, the first chapters of Genesis are "a book of prehistory", as the Israelites had told them from generation to generation since the time of the patriarchs ; in all fundamental facts the narrative agrees with the sacred books of the ancient peoples of the Euphrates and Tigris . For Lenormant, the inspiration lies in the absolutely new spirit that fills the report with life, even though the design of the writing is quite similar to the stories told by the neighboring peoples. Four years after his death, the book was put on the index on December 19, 1887; in the introduction he affirmed his attachment to the Catholic faith .

As results of Assyriological and ancient oriental research Lenormant can also be considered:

  • Le déluge et l'épopée babylonienne (Paris 1873)
  • Choix de textes cunéiformes inédits… (3 issues, 1873–75)
  • Les sciences occultes en Asie (2 vols., 1874–75; in a slightly different form in German under the title Die Magie und die divination art , Jena 1878)
  • Les premières civilizations (2 vols., 2nd edition Paris 1874; German 2 vols., Jena 1875)

More fonts

  • Histoire des massacres de Syrie en 1860 (Paris 1861)
  • La révolution en Grèce (Paris 1862)
  • Essai sur l'organization politique et économique de la monnaie dans l'antiquité (Paris 1863)
  • Chefs-d'œuvres de l'art antique (3 vols., Paris 1867–1869)
  • Les tableaux du musée de Naples (1868)
  • Histoire du peuple juif (Paris 1869)
  • Essai de commentaire des fragments cosmogoniques de Bérose (Paris 1872)
  • The Secret Sciences of Asia: The Magic and Divination Art of the Chaldeans. Two parts in volume. Costenoble Verlag, Jena, 1878. Improved and enlarged German edition.
  • La Genese traduite d'apres l'hébreu, avec distinction des éléments constitutifs du texte, suivi d'un essai de restitution des textes dont s'est servi le dernier rédacteur (Paris 1884)

literature

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