Helmuth Theodor Bossert

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Helmuth Philipp Theodor Bossert (born September 11, 1889 in Landau in the Palatinate , † February 5, 1961 in Istanbul ) was a German art historian and Near Eastern archaeologist .

Life

Bossert studied art history, history, archeology and German in Heidelberg , Strasbourg , Munich and Freiburg im Breisgau . He received his doctorate in Freiburg in 1913 with a thesis on the subject of the former high altar in Our Dear Women parish church in Sterzing in Tyrol . Bossert then completed his military service as a so-called “ one-year volunteer ”, which was seamlessly followed by military service as an officer in the First World War. After the war, he was initially unable to pursue his intended university career, as there were preferred candidates for assistant positions who were disabled and also younger. So it came about that he found a job as a lecturer / publisher, but also an author, at the Wasmuth publishing house in Berlin, which was now managed by his college friend Günther Wasmuth. Here he mainly worked on folklore of different times and peoples.

After the publishing house Wasmuth had to be downsized considerably in connection with the global economic crisis in 1929 , he lost this position again and then published with Kamerad im Westen (1930) and Defenseless Behind the Front (1931) also critical writings on the effects of the previous war (im Frankfurter Societäts-Verlag ). Above all, the comrade surprisingly developed into a bestseller, which is why the second volume was pushed after (actually an extended version of comrade in the west was planned). Both books later ended up in the National Socialists' book burning campaigns.

The profit from his publishing activity allowed him to concentrate on new studies for a certain time even without a regular income. From 1930 Bossert dealt with Hittite hieroglyphs . Within a very short time he became familiar with the subject and was quickly considered, alongside Piero Meriggi, to be the most important decipherer of Cretan and Hittite pictorial writing. In 1933 he was awarded a scholarship for a trip to Turkey by the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft . One of the main targets was the excavation in Boğazköy . According to the excavation manager Kurt Bittel , he revealed an intellectual closeness to National Socialism and, according to Bittel, insisted on the " German greeting " on the excavation site and on the swastika flag when the visit of the French Minister of State Édouard Herriot - which ultimately did not materialize - announced was. In addition, he and Eckhard Unger are said to have tried to take over the excavation management in Hattuša and to blacken Bittel and Hans Gustav Güterbock for allegedly lacking German convictions.

During his stay in Turkey, celebrations for the tenth anniversary of the republic were held everywhere in the country, so that Bossert had the opportunity to come into contact with the officials there. As a result, in April 1934 he was appointed to a chair for ancient Asia Minor languages ​​and cultures at the University of Istanbul . He also took on Turkish citizenship at this time . Bossert's teaching assignment also included the publication of Hittite monuments, which he took care of every year in the summer semesters. Between 1939 and 1946, research came to an almost complete standstill due to the war. After the war he married his second wife Hürmüz.

In 1946, Bossert continued his work and, together with Halet Çambel and Bahadır Alkım, discovered the late Hittite ruins in Karatepe above Adana . The bilingual inscriptions found there - the Bilingue of Karatepe - ultimately led to the deciphering of the script, which at that time was classified as Hittite hieroglyphs (according to today's understanding, hieroglyphic Luwian ).

His daughter Eva-Maria , born in 1925 from his first marriage, studied archeology in Graz in 1944 , a course that she continued in Bonn in autumn 1945, in order to study with Kurt Bittel in Tübingen from 1947 . She received her doctorate in 1952 on the Cycladic culture with Wolfgang Kimmig , Bittel's successor. Until 1956 she took part in excavations led by her father and Halet Çambel and analyzed the Phrygian goods on the initiative of her father. In February 1957 she married her fellow student, the prehistorian Franz Fischer in Istanbul, and two children were born in 1958 and 1965.

A journal for research on Asia Minor , founded in 1954 , only had three volumes. Bossert has carried out several excavation campaigns in Misis since 1955 . In 1959 he retired in Istanbul and was appointed honorary professor in Freiburg, but stayed in Istanbul.

Fonts

House Book (1912)
Bossert contributed to Hanns Holdts photobook Greece (1928)
  • The former high altar in Our Lady Parish Church in Sterzing in Tyrol. Wagner, Innsbruck 1914, (Freiburg (Breisgau), university, dissertation, 1914).
  • The ornamentation. A collection of applied colored ornaments and decorations. With special attention to the lesser known cultures for practical use. Wasmuth, Berlin 1924.
  • Folk art in Europe. Almost 2100 examples with special consideration of the ornamentation on 132 panels, including 100 in multicolored faithful reproduction. Wasmuth, Berlin 1926.
  • as editor: History of the arts and crafts of all times and peoples. 6 volumes. Wasmuth, Berlin 1928–1935.
  • Comrade in the west. A report in 221 pictures. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1930.
  • Defenseless behind the front. Suffering of the peoples in war. 144 image documents. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1931.
  • Šantaš and Kupapa. New contributions to the deciphering of the Cretan and Hittite illuminated manuscripts (= messages from the Old Oriental Society. Vol. 6, No. 3, ZDB -ID 501175-9 ). Harrassowitz, Leipzig 1932.
  • Old Anatolia. Arts and crafts in Asia Minor. From the beginning to the complete absorption in the Greek culture (= the oldest cultures of the Mediterranean area. 2, ZDB -ID 1066093-8 ). Wasmuth, Berlin 1942.
  • Karatepe Kazıları. Birinci ön-rapor. = The excavations on Karatepe (first preliminary report) (= Türk tarih kurumu yayınları. Seri 5, 9, ZDB -ID 1179835-X ). Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, Ankara 1950.
  • Ancient Syria. Art and craft in Cyprus, Syria, Palestine, Transjordan and Arabia from the beginning to the complete absorption in the Greco-Roman culture (= the oldest cultures of the Mediterranean area. 3). Wasmuth, Berlin 1951.

literature

  • Bahadır Alkım: Prof. Dr. Th. Bossert, November 11, 1889 - February 5, 1961. In: Anadolu araştırmaları 2, 1965, ISSN  0569-9746 , pp. XI – XIII, XIX – XXXI
  • Kurt Bittel : Travels and excavations in Egypt, Asia Minor, Bulgaria and Greece 1930–1934 (= Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz. Treatises of the humanities and social sciences class . 1998, no. 5). Steiner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-515-07328-0
  • Utz Maas : Hellmut Theodor Bossert. In: Persecution and Emigration of German-Speaking Linguists 1933-1945. Stauffenburg, Tübingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-86057-016-6

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ For the allegations during the Nazi era, see hethitologie.de
  2. ^ Eva-Maria Bossert: Die Grabfunde der Kykladenkultur , Diss., Tübingen 1954.
  3. ↑ Magarita Díaz-Andreu, Marie Louise Stig Sorensen (Ed.): Excavating Women. A History of Women in European Archeology , Routledge, 1998, p. 281 ff.
  4. ↑ Ser. No. 287. The numerous other Germans in the directory were all refugees from Germany, most of them due to the Aryan paragraph
personal data
SURNAME Bossert, Helmuth Theodor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bossert, Helmuth Philipp Theodor
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German archaeologist, ancient orientalist and art historian
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Landau
DATE OF DEATH 5th February 1961
Place of death Istanbul