Gustav Hirschfeld

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Gustav Hirschfeld

Paul Oscar Gustav Hirschfeld (born November 4, 1847 in Pyritz , † April 20, 1895 in Wiesbaden ) was a German classical archaeologist . During his studies he closely followed Ernst Curtius , then undertook extensive educational trips and finally an expedition into the hitherto largely unexplored interior of Asia Minor . He continued his career as the first director of the German excavations in Olympia (1875–1878) and as a professor of archeology in Königsberg (1878–1895), but died early at the age of 47. As a researcher and academic teacher, Hirschfeld is one of the most important archaeologists of the late 19th century. His writings brought new insights into vase painting, the topography of Greece and Asia Minor in particular, and historical geography .

Life

Gustav Hirschfeld, the son of the Jewish merchant Hirsch Hirschfeld (later baptized as Hermann Hirschfeld , † 1880) and his wife Henriette nee Stargardt (1821-1883), attended the high school in Pyritz from 1859 after a few years of private lessons. After graduation, he moved to Berlin University in the fall of 1865 to study Classical Archeology and Philology. After two semesters he moved to Tübingen . His inclination towards archeology developed steadily during his studies: in Berlin and Tübingen he attended philological events as well as the lectures of the archaeologists Karl Friederichs and Adolf Michaelis . In 1867 he moved to Leipzig for a year . Here he also attended the lectures of the linguist Georg Curtius and the text critic Friedrich Ritschl , but he was particularly captivated by the lectures of the archaeologist Johannes Overbeck . After a year, Hirschfeld returned to Berlin, where he worked closely with Ernst Curtius , who later had a decisive influence on his academic career.

In an obituary for his pupil, 80-year-old Curtius wrote: “From the beginning he drew a special degree of attention; because I don't remember any listener with whom a personal transformation like his took place during his student days. ”According to Curtius, Hirschfeld initially used his quick comprehension and fluency in expression to present research results quickly and without a thorough review. But during his last year of study in Berlin, a fundamental change happened to him. His dissertation De titulis statuariorum sculptorumque Graecorum capita duo priora (“Two first chapters on the inscriptions of the Greek sculptors and stonemasons”), with which he received his doctorate in 1870, was posthumously recognized by the teacher as “a learned book in which the inscriptions ... in instructive overview were compiled. He shows how well he knows how to move from the individual and the small to the big and big ... "

Wandering years

After completing his studies, Hirschfeld undertook a study trip to the Mediterranean from 1871 to 1872 as a travel grant from the German Archaeological Institute , which took him from Bologna via Ravenna to Athens, Attica and the Peloponnese, and from there over the Aegean Islands to Constantinople. There he met Ernst Curtius in August 1871, who at that time was exploring the coast of Asia Minor with Karl Bernhard Stark , Friedrich Adler and Heinrich Gelzer as part of a Prussian embassy. On behalf of Helmuth von Moltke, the embassy was accompanied by Major Benno Regely , who a few years later became head of the geographic statistical department of the Prussian General Staff . During the weeks that Hirschfeld spent at the legation, he became interested in the topography of Asia Minor, which from then on was a focus of his scientific work. The following year he again spent in Italy ( Rome , Lower Italy and Sicily ) and Greece (Northern Greece, Peloponnese), where he was engaged in archaeological studies. Hirschfeld quickly learned modern Greek and Turkish and cultivated cordial contacts with fellow countrymen. He felt so at home in Greece that he even planned to set up an institute and a journal for Greek archaeological studies; but that did not happen.

Hirschfeld returned to Germany in the summer of 1873. During the trip he had published numerous essays and small papers about his research, including a letter to Alexander Conze about the vases from Kerameikos . In 1873 his monograph Topographischer attempt about the Peiraieusstadt was published . In the same year he traveled to London for a few more weeks to study the collections there.

First expedition to Asia Minor

Topography of Asia Minor

Since wandering through Asia Minor with the Prussian embassy, ​​Hirschfeld's dream was to explore the ancient cities in this region. Ernst Curtius therefore used his influence to send him, together with the builder Hermann Eggert, on behalf of the Prussian Academy of Sciences for research purposes to south-western Asia Minor. The journey led from Antalya via Termessos to Pamphylia and from there via Side through the Melas Valley into the hardly explored Anatolian plateau. Here Hirschfeld and Eggert moved over the western shore of Lake Beyşehir and Mount Anamar to the southern shore of Lake Eğirdir , from there via Kremna to Isparta, where they parted. Eggert moved through the Meander Valley to Aydın , Hirschfeld through Pisidia to the site of Apameia Kibotos , which he carefully recorded, and further southeast to the border mountains between Lycia and Caria . He crossed the mountains on a previously unknown pass and visited the lost sites of Aphrodisias , Stratonikeia , Lagina and Alabanda , before joining Eggert again in Aydın. After this expedition both made short trips to the west coast of Asia Minor and the island of Teos , from which they brought back valuable research results.

Excavation director in Olympia

Photograph of the excavation site at the Temple of Zeus in Olympia during the first excavation campaign, 1875/1876, with the workers

Hirschfeld and Eggert's expedition was of great importance for science. They were the first scientists to visit these areas; Hirschfeld's notes in particular formed the basis for the following research undertakings in Asia Minor. That is why the German Empire appointed him head of the excavations in Olympia, which had been negotiated with the Greek government under Curtius' leadership, after the English and French had previously examined the site from an archaeological point of view. Hirschfeld himself broke ground on October 4, 1875, in the successful German investigations of Olympia, which have continued to this day. His wife Margarethe b. Bredschneider, whom he married in Berlin on July 15, 1876, accompanied him on the second excavation campaign in the winter of 1876/1877.

During the two campaigns, under Hirschfeld's direction, the most important topographical fixed points in the Altis , the temple district in Olympia, were determined; the Zeus temple , which was already partially excavated by the French , was completely exposed, the newly discovered Hera temple partially exposed. Hirschfeld's excavations uncovered numerous important works of art, including the gable figures of the Temple of Zeus, the Nike des Paionios and the Hermes des Praxiteles .

  • Nike des Paionios; the head was not found until 1879

  • Seated man from the east gable of the Temple of Zeus

  • Atlas brings Heracles the apples of the Hesperides, metope of the Temple of Zeus

  • Hermes des Praxiteles, found in 1878

After the conclusion of the second campaign, Hirschfeld and some colleagues resigned from his position because differences arose over the way in which the work in the Berlin Central Directorate would be continued. His mentor Curtius skipped this section of his biography in his obituary with the words: “He couldn't stay too long in the lonely waiting room. After his gaze had been confined to a narrow space for a long time, in order to complete his scientific training it was necessary for him to study the European collections. ” The archaeologist Georg Treu was brought in to succeed Hirschfeld in Olympia .

Hirschfeld stayed briefly in Berlin and then went to London for a longer period (autumn 1877 and January to March 1878), where he worked with the archaeologist Charles Thomas Newton . He also stayed in Paris for a few months before returning to Germany.

Professor in Koenigsberg

Signature of Gustav Hirschfeld

After his research trips, Hirschfeld went to the University of Leipzig to do his habilitation. During this time (1877) he was baptized, according to Rühl, not to advance his career, but out of many years of inner conviction. An academic career in Germany at that time was only possible after the conversion from Judaism to Christianity, so this step was of essential importance for the further career. But as early as Easter 1878, before the completion of the habilitation process, he was appointed associate professor for archeology at the University of Königsberg ; his predecessor Hugo Blümner there had moved to Zurich. Hirschfeld developed extensive teaching activities in Königsberg; therefore his extraordinary professorship was converted into a full professorship after two years. His lectures on art archeology, numismatics, Greek epigraphy and especially the geography and topography of Greece and Asia Minor attracted many students. Gustav Hirschfeld's only child was born in Königsberg, Werner Hirschfeld (* February 28, 1882), who later studied art history and received his doctorate in Halle an der Saale in 1911 . He fell in the First World War in 1914.

Hirschfeld actively participated in the scientific enterprise of Königsberg. In 1882 he was a founding member of the Königsberg Geographical Society, which was brought into being by Karl Zöppritz . After the death of the founder and chairman, on whom Hirschfeld gave a memorial speech, he was elected as his successor.

The tight spatial situation at Königsberg University and the inadequacy of the collections and libraries there impaired his work. That is why he made frequent research trips: in 1880 to Italy and Greece, where he also visited his old excavation site Olympia, from July to October 1882 with the support of the Berlin Academy of Sciences and the Prussian government to Asia Minor: this time he toured the north coast, the landscapes of Paphlagonia , Phrygia and Galatia , which at that time were largely unexplored. He completed his journey after more than 1,500 kilometers in Samsun and returned to Constantinople after a detour to Trebizond . On this expedition, too, Hirschfeld made valuable finds: He discovered numerous rock graves and sculptures from the early days of Asia Minor, which provided him with research material for many years. It was his last great voyage of discovery. In the following years he traveled for research purposes to St. Petersburg, Paris, several times to London, in the summer of 1888 through Spain, in 1889 again to Greece and Constantinople.

In the years that followed, Hirschfeld's work was affected by a pelvic sarcoma , which was diagnosed in 1891 and found incurable in 1893. Nevertheless, he did not resign from his professorship and tirelessly continued his publishing activities. A trip to New York, where a new cure was being tried, brought no improvement in his condition. Hirschfeld spent the following months on holiday trips to Switzerland and finally to Wiesbaden, where he died on April 20, 1895 at the age of only 47.

Services

Title page of the first volume of the Olympia excavation reports

Gustav Hirschfeld made important achievements in many areas of archeology. His research and publication activities on the topography of Asia Minor and Greece are considered to be a milestone in research. In Olympia, his excavations brought unique art treasures to light. Due to his untimely death, he was unable to present his research in a large, cohesive publication, but his work broke the ground for much topographical and archaeological work. His mentor Ernst Curtius judged Hirschfeld's life's work: “The life work of all mortals remains unfinished; it was his to a special degree. But she was one in herself and will not be forgotten. More energetically and livelier than one of his contemporaries, as a researcher he has grasped the task of our time to make antiquity independent of the accidental extent of literary tradition and to explore the entire life of people in the soil of the country with its monuments. "

In his publications and lectures, Hirschfeld dealt with all areas of archeology and its related subjects. He immortalized himself in research on Greek vase painting as early as 1872 when he published a late Geometric crater found in Kerameikos in a letter to Alexander Conze (today in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens , No. 990). The painter of this vase has since been known under the emergency name Hirschfeld painter , the vase as the Hirschfeld Krater .

Hirschfeld's topographical research and publications, which were in the tradition of Carl Ritter , helped historical geography to gain a new reputation in relation to scientific, especially physical, geography. At a time when the interest in voyages of discovery was directed towards inner Africa, Central Asia and Australia, Hirschfeld sought to rediscover the largely unexplored sites of ancient Greece. “In the historically rich countries of the ancient civilization, the interest of modern geographers was little, and in part it is still today. Certainly the world of the ancients appears compared to the worlds opened up to us modern ... limited in scope, incomparably poorer in great contrasts ... But does it not replace what it lacks in space ... with its development in time? " Hirschfeld saw the task of scientific Geography in learning to understand people and their history.

Hirschfeld also dealt with systematic investigations. In the commemorative publication for Ernst Curtius on his 70th birthday, his typology, Typology of Greek Settlements , appeared in 1884 , the explanations of which he further developed in 1890 in the essay The Development of the Cityscape .

As an admirer of the general and traveler Helmuth von Moltke, Hirschfeld published his letters from Turkey from the years 1835 to 1839 ( Gesammelte Schriften , Volume 8, Berlin 1893). For him, "the wonderful thing about these descriptions was that they unite two sides that otherwise seem incompatible, the most faithful reflection of the outside world and at the same time the warmest inner part."

Fonts (selection)

  • Tituli statuariorum sculptorumque Graecorum cum prolegomenis , Berlin 1871
  • Athena and Marsyas , program for the Winckelmannsfest of the Archaeological Society of Berlin 32, Berlin 1872
  • About Kelainai-Apameia Kibotos , Berlin 1875
  • Report on the results of a tour of Paphlagonia , Berlin 1882
  • Paphlagonian rock tombs. A contribution to the art history of Asia Minor , Berlin 1885
  • The rock reliefs in Asia Minor and the Hittite people. Second contribution to the art history of Asia Minor , Berlin 1887
  • About the Greek funerary inscriptions which order fines , in: Königsberger Studien 1, 1887, pp. 83–144
  • Inscriptions from Northern Asia Minor, especially from Bithynia and Paphlagonia , Berlin 1888
  • The collection of ancient Greek inscriptions in the British Museum, 4, 1: Knidos, Halikarnassos and Branchida , Oxford 1893
  • From the Orient , Berlin 1897

literature

Obituaries

  • Ernst Curtius: Gustav Hirschfeld , in: Deutsche Rundschau , Volume 34 (1895), pp. 377–384
  • Max Lehnerdt : Gustav Hirschfeld , in: Biographisches Jahrbuch für Altertumskunde , 21st year (1899), pp. 65–90 (with list of publications).
  • Hans Prutz : Gustav Hirschfeld: Memorial speech, held in the Königsberger Geographische Gesellschaft on May 24, 1895 , in: Old Prussian Monthly , Volume 32 (1895), pp. 311–332 (with list of publications by Max Lehnerdt, pp. 327–332).

Lexicon article

Special examinations

  • Matthias Recke : In loco Murtana, ubi olim Perge sita fuit: The beginning of archaeological research in Pamphylia and Gustav Hirschfeld's expedition to Asia Minor in 1874 , Antalya 2007.

Web links

Commons : Excavations at Olympia 1875/1876  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Commons : Gustav Hirschfeld  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Gustav Hirschfeld  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Citizen (1994) 1378.
  2. ^ Curtius (1895) 377.
  3. ^ Curtius (1895) 378.
  4. ^ Lullies (1988) 88.
  5. ↑ Prutz (1895) 312.
  6. ^ A b Rühl (1905) 369.
  7. ^ Curtius (1895) 380.
  8. ^ William M. Calder III : German Philologists in American Exile. An analysis of their effects , In: Philologus 141 (1997), pp. 275-296, in particular p. 285
  9. ^ Obituary in the Deutsche Literaturzeitung , 35th year (1915), p. 40.
  10. ↑ Prutz (1895) 311.
  11. ^ Curtius (1895) 382-383.
  12. ↑ Prutz (1895) 324.
  13. ↑ Quoted from Prutz (1895) 322–323.
  14. ↑ From the introduction to the volume.
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on December 13, 2009 in this version .
personal data
SURNAME Hirschfeld, Gustav
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hirschfeld, Oscar Gustav; Hirschfeld, Paul Oscar Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical archaeologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1847
PLACE OF BIRTH Pyritz
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 1895
Place of death Wiesbaden