Friedrich Hinkel

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Friedrich Wilhelm Hinkel (born December 28, 1925 in Berlin , German Reich ; † June 12, 2007 in Berlin, Germany ) was a German architect and archaeologist . With his archaeological work in Sudan , he laid the foundations for the Archaeological Map of Sudan, an inventory of all ancient monuments and sites in Sudan.

Career

Friedrich Wilhelm Hinkel was born in 1925 as the only son of a typist and a businessman in Berlin and grew up there. His youth were overshadowed by the Great Depression and the end of the Weimar Republic . His father left the family when Hinkel was 14 years old. Hinkel attended high school when the Second World War broke out. At the age of 17 he then served as a gunner in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front . Hinkel became a Soviet prisoner of war and was sent to Siberia . Despite the poor conditions on site in the prisoner of war camp, he maintained his strict vegetarian lifestyle. After his release from captivity, he returned home to Berlin and trained there from 1945 to 1947 as a bricklayer and carpenter.

Lion temple in al-Musawwarat as-sufra (2006)

He then studied from 1947 to 1950 at the Technical University of Magdeburg and graduated as a structural engineer . Hinkel worked as a construction manager and structural engineer. In 1952 he worked as an architect for the federal board of the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB) and then until 1959 for the German Building Academy (DBA). During his work for the DBA he worked on the reconstruction of the State Opera Unter den Linden and on the development of the large-panel construction in Hoyerswerda . Hinkel was traveling all over the world. He built pavilions for international trade fairs and GDR industrial exhibitions . In addition, he accompanied excavation teams, for whom he made the measurements and drawings. During an excavation, he made plans for the reconstruction of the Sudanese lion temple in al-Musawwarat as-sufra , which was finally reconstructed from 1969 to 1970 under the direction of Fritz Hintze and Karl-Heinz Priese .

In 1959, Egypt concluded an agreement with Sudan for the construction of the Aswan Dam , since the planned reservoir (see Lake Nasser ) would flood not only large parts of the Nile Valley in Egypt, but also large parts south of the national border. At that time there were old pyramids and temples from the Nubian era, which were threatened with destruction by the masses of water. Hinkel, now a research associate at the Central Institute for Ancient History and Archeology (ZIAGA), was in Sudan for work in 1960. He took part in an excavation and drew attention to himself by securing the structures. The then director of the Sudanese antiquities administration asked him to take over the rescue of the buildings, which consisted of crumbly sandstone . These should be dismantled and transported 1,500 km to Khartoum in order to be rebuilt in a planned pyramid park. At that time, Hinkel neither had sufficient financial resources nor could he serve with the latest technology. Nevertheless, Hinkel accepted the challenge. The starting position was difficult. There was hardly any financial or personal support for the project from the GDR and Sudan. There were only 50 men available to him. These were only villagers and nomads. He received some financial relief from UNESCO , which provided part of the funds for wages and materials. Therefore, Hinkel had to improvise most of the time.

Hinkel took part in two excavation campaigns in Sudan between 1960 and 1962. From 1962 to 1964 he managed the dismantling of four Egyptian temples and the transport to Khartoum on behalf of the Sudanese Antiquities Administration. To bring the temple blocks to the next train station, he had a ferry built over the Nile from 50 gasoline barrels and then brought the temple blocks there on the other side of the bank with mahogany sleds. A colleague from Frankfurt am Main scoffed at the time:

"So you are the one who wants to load the temples into freight cars and shovel them out again as sand."

In reality, only one of the approximately 12,000 temple blocks transported tore through in the middle. When rebuilding the temples, Hinkel used the same techniques as the original builders of the temples. From 1965 to 1973 he worked as an architect for Sudan Antiquities Service . During this time he directed the construction of the National Museum in Khartoum and the Ali Dinar Museum in the capital al-Fashir of the Sudanese state of Shamal Darfur .

From 1973 to 1975 he was back in Berlin. During this time he followed up the evaluation of the material he had brought with him and published articles and books. In the course of time, Hinkel became the most important Sudan expert in the GDR.

Aerial view of the pyramids of Meroe (2001)

Hinkel worked from 1976 to 1985 for the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM) in Sudan. During this time he carried out restoration and reconstruction work in the port city of Sawakin on the Red Sea and at more than 100 tombs in the pyramid field of Meroe . In this context, Hinkel discovered the first and so far only construction drawing of a pyramid in 1979. He said the following about the discovery:

"That was on the wall of the sacrificial chapel of pyramid 8, around noon: I moved a block of the wall, the sun fell on it, and there it was, the colleague's drawing, carved in stone."

In 1985 he led the excavations and documentation of a sun temple and a priestly house in Meroe. In his work he was always careful, unlike the Italian Giuseppe Ferlini in 1834. During his stay, he almost completely destroyed the pyramid N6. Hinkel once said the following about him:

"If Ferlini had understood immediately that the kings of Merowe built their burial chambers underground and not, like the Egyptians, in the pyramid itself, he might not have caused so much harm."

In 1980 he received his doctorate from the Academy of Sciences . In 1981, Hinkel worked as a consultant for UNESCO at the museum in Tripoli ( Libya ). From 1985 to 1988 he was an advisor to the General Directorate of Antiquities and Museums in Sudan. Hinkel was elected chairman of the International Society for Nubian Studies in 1986 .

With the German reunification he retired and was able to travel to Sudan without travel restrictions. The German Archaeological Institute (DAI) supported him on his travels from 1996. He was a corresponding member there. Meanwhile, the funds from UNESCO for the preservation of the temples were canceled. Thereupon Hinkel tried to win tourists as sponsors, which he succeeded. With the donation, 9,000 dollars , from an Englishwoman, the tomb of Prince Taktidamani could be dismantled in 1998 in three and a half weeks and rebuilt on a reinforced concrete foundation. The company moved 650 sandstone blocks in 23 layers (8 meters). In this context, Hinkel said in an interview at the end of 1998:

"We are going to remake the remaining 2 meters because the original blocks are no longer there."

Hinkel died in 2007 at the age of 82 from complications from cancer.

The German Archaeological Institute manages Hinkel's scientific estate. It forms one of the most important archives on ancient Sudan. From 2017 to 2020, his archive was digitized by the German Archaeological Institute and made publicly accessible via iDAI.welt, at the same time the basis for a first national register of monuments in Sudan.

family

He had two daughters with his wife Anneliese. The youngest daughter Mariam was also an architect and should be his successor. She died in a car accident in 1989 during an excavation in Damascus ( Syria ). At this point she was working on her doctoral thesis on Sudan archeology. During his research years, Hinkel rarely saw his family. According to the travel regulations of the GDR at the time, his wife and only one daughter could visit him for a maximum of one month a year. The other daughter had to stay behind in the GDR.

Awards

Articles / works (selection)

Trivia

Friedrich Hinkel's motto was Carpe diem ! a sentence from around 23 v. Chr. The ode "An Leukonoë" by the Roman poet Horace was created in BC . It's about enjoying the scarce life time today and not postponing it to the next day.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sudan & Nubia . In: The Sudan Archaeological Research Society Bulletin. No. 11, 2007, p. 3.
  2. ↑ German Archaeological Institute press release of March 1, 2020: The world's largest digital research archive on ancient Sudan handed over in Khartoum in the presence of Federal President Steinmeier , accessed on April 28, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Hinkel, Friedrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hinkel, Friedrich Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German architect and archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH December 28, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 2007
Place of death Berlin, Germany