Hans Gustav Güterbock

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Hans Gustav Güterbock (born May 27, 1908 in Berlin ; died March 29, 2000 in Chicago ) was a German-American Hittitologist .

Live and act

Güterbock grew up in a wealthy family in Berlin. Since his father, the private scholar Bruno Güterbock (1858–1940), was one of the driving figures of the German Orient Society , he came into contact with the various disciplines of ancient oriental research as a teenager . After graduating from high school, he received private lessons in Hittite from Hans Ehelolf , the curator of the Near Eastern Department of the Berlin museums . He studied Sanskrit and Arabic in Berlin , then in Leipzig with Johannes Friedrich and Benno Landsberger Hittitology and Assyriology . When the excavations in Hattuša , the capital of the Hittite empire , began in 1931 in a cooperation between the German Orient Society and the German Archaeological Institute , the excavation manager Kurt Bittel brought Güterbock into the team as excavation philologist . In 1933 he received his doctorate on the subject of historical tradition and its literary design among the Babylonians and Hittites up to 1200 .

Because of his father's Jewish descent, he could not get a job with Ehelolf in the Berlin museums. In 1935 he was appointed professor for Hittitology at the newly founded University of Ankara in Turkey , together with his academic teacher Landsberger, who took over a professorship for Assyriology. At the same time he continued to work on the Boğazköy excavation (Hattuša). He published the results of his research there in the standard work Siegel from Boghazköi . During this time Güterbock was involved in building the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara .

After the Second World War, Güterbock first went to Uppsala University , then after a year he was appointed to the Oriental Institute of Chicago , where he stayed until his death. There he worked on the Chicago Hittite Dictionary , an extensive Hittite dictionary.

Before the German Consulate General in Istanbul, Güterbock had Franziska Hellmann (1919–2014), daughter of Karl Hellmann and Rosy, b. Herzfelder, married, with whom he had sons Walter Michael and Thomas Martin Güterbock. In 1956, they received US citizenship. He received honorary doctorates from the Free University of Berlin and the Universities of Uppsala and Ankara. Since 1971 he has been a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . He was a member of the British Academy , the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1975), the American Philosophical Society (1977) and in 1962 President of the American Oriental Society .

Works (selection)

  • with Rainer Michael Boehmer: Glyptik from the urban area of ​​Boğazköy. Excavation campaign 1931–1939, 1952–1978 (= The Glyptik von Boğazköy 2 = Boğazköy-Ḫattuša 14). Gebr. Mann, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-7861-1494-3 .
  • as co-editor with Harry A. Hoffner: The Hittite Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of The University of Chicago. = Chicago Hittite Dictionary. Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago IL 1983-2000 (-current), ISBN 0-918986-26-5 .
  • The Deeds of Suppiluliuma as told by his son, Mursili II. In: Journal of Cuneiform Studies. Volume 10, No. 4, 1956, ISSN  0022-0256 , pp. 107-130.

literature

  • Nick Ravo: Hans Gustav Guterbock, 91, Expert in Ancient Languages . In: The New York Times . 2000 ( nytimes.com - obituary).
  • Erica Reiner: Hans Gustav Güterbock, 27 May 1908 29 March 2000 . In: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society . tape 146 , no. 3 , September 2002, ISSN  0003-049X , p. 292-296 , JSTOR : 1558170 (obituary).
  • Güterbock, Hans Gustav , in: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 . Volume 2.1. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 433f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Proof: Hans's handwritten curriculum vitae. Gustav Güterbock undated, last entry for 1949, Landesverwaltungsamt Berlin III, file 150616 E7 p. 2, there also documents for the biographical information on Hans Gustav Güterbock himself up to 1948
  2. ↑ Member History: Hans G. Güterbock. American Philosophical Society, accessed September 18, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Güterbock, Hans Gustav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American Hittiteologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 27, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 2000
Place of death Chicago