Hugo Winckler

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Hugo Winckler

Hugo Winckler (born July 4, 1863 in Graefenhainichen , † April 19, 1913 in Berlin ) was a German ancient orientalist .

Winckler was a son of the city's first railway master. He studied at the University of Berlin with Eberhard Schrader , the founder of German Assyriology, and received his doctorate on June 24, 1886 with a thesis on Sargon's cuneiform texts. As a professor (from 1904) for oriental languages ​​at the University of Berlin, Winckler dealt with cuneiform scripts . During studies in the royal Egyptian archives in Tell El-Amarna , he came across two tablets containing cuneiform texts from the Hittite cuneiform, which was previously unknown .

On his initiative, excavations began in Boğazköy in the Anatolian highlands in 1906 together with Theodor Makridi . The tablets found there definitively proved that the place was the capital of the Hittite Empire, Hattuša . The excavations continued from 1907 to 1912.

In his article Preliminary News on the Excavations in Boghaz-köi in the summer of 1907 , Winckler presented the history of the Hittite Empire, based on a number of treaties in Akkadian . He made an important contribution to research into the history of the Middle East .

The equation of the "Hurri" with the Biblical Hurriters goes back to Winckler . Hugo Winckler also coined the term Panbabylonism to describe the far-reaching influence of Assyrian thought that he postulated on the Israeli idea of ​​God, which he saw as an echo of the astral cult. He thus played an important role in the Babel-Bible dispute , since his idea that ancient intellectual culture and thus the entire Western culture go back to ancient oriental knowledge and achievements were even more radical than the more moderate views of Friedrich Delitzsch .

Fonts (selection)

  • Report on the clay tablets from Tell-el-Amarna in the Royal Museum in Berlin and in the Museum of Bulaq. Meeting reports of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, Berlin 1888.
  • The cuneiform texts of Sargon. Eduard Pfeiffer publisher, Leipzig 1889.
  • Studies on ancient oriental history. Eduard Pfeiffer publisher, Leipzig 1889.
  • Historical texts of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Hugo Winckler, Berlin 1890. (Cuneiform library, Vol. 3, 2)
  • History of Babylonia and Assyria. Eduard Pfeiffer Verlag, Leipzig 1892. (Peoples and States of the Ancient Orient, Vol. 1)
  • The clay tablets of Tell-el-Amarna . Reuther & Reichard Berlin 1896. (Cuneiform library, vol. 5)
    • The Tell-el-Amarna letters. Lemcke & Buechner, New York 1896.
  • Peoples and states of the ancient Orient. Eduard Pfeiffer Publishing House, Leipzig 1892–1900.
  • Collection of cuneiform texts I - II 1, 2 . Eduard Pfeiffer publisher, Leipzig 1893/94.
  • Cuneiform text book on the Old Testament. JC Hinrichs, Leipzig 1892. (Auxiliary books for the knowledge of the ancient Orient, Vol. 1)
  • (Ed.): Ancient oriental research. Eduard Pfeiffer publishing house, Leipzig 1893–1902.
  • Old Babylonian cuneiform texts for use in lectures. Eduard Pfeiffer publisher, Leipzig 1892.
  • The Sabaean inscriptions of Alhan Nahfan's time. Peiser, Berlin 1897 (communications from the Near Eastern Society 5)
  • The peoples of the Near East . JC Hinrichs, Leipzig 1899 (The Old Orient, vol. 1, issue 1)
  • From the Euphrates to the Tiber. Studies of ancient history. Eduard Pfeiffer Verlag, Leipzig 1899 (under the pseudonym Christian Mücke ).
  • The political development of Babylonia and Assyria. JC Hinrichs, Leipzig 1900 (The Old Orient, vol. 2, issue 1)
  • Arabic-Semitic-Oriental. Cultural-historical-mythological investigations . Peiser, Berlin 1901 (reports from the Near Eastern Society 4. 5)
  • Ancient West Asia . In: Hans F. Helmolt (Ed.): Weltgeschichte. Vol. 3. Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig 1901, p. 3 ff.
    • The History of Babylonia and Assyria . translated v. James Alexander Craig, Scribner's , New York 1907. Translation of Ancient West Asia. in: Helmolt's world history. Vol. 3. Bibliographical Institute, Leipzig 1901
  • The laws of Hammurabi, king of Babylon around 2250 BC Chr. Leipzig 1902. (Der Alte Orient, vol. 4, booklet 4).
  • The Babylonian culture in its relationship to ours: A lecture. 2nd edition, JC Hinrichs, Leipzig 1902
  • Abraham as a Babylonian, Joseph as an Egyptian: the world-historical background of the biblical fathers' stories based on the cuneiform inscriptions. JC Hinrichs, Leipzig 1903
  • Laws of Hammurabi in transcription and translation. JC Hinrichs, Leipzig 1904
  • History of the city of Babylon. JC Hinrichs, Leipzig 1904 (Der Alte Orient Vol. 6, Issue 1)
  • The Euphrates and the Mediterranean. JC Hinrichs, Leipzig 1905. (Der Alte Orient Vol. 7, Issue 2).
  • Extract from the history of the Near East . JC Hinrichs, Leipzig 1905
  • Religious-historical and historical orient. An examination of the prerequisites for the "religious history" consideration of the Old Testament and the Wellhausen school . JC Hinrichs, Leipzig 1906.
  • The ancient Orient and historical research. An unfinished script. Peiser, Berlin 1906 (reports from the Near Eastern Society 11, 1)
  • Ancient oriental view of history. E. Pfeiffer, Leipzig 1906. (Ex Oriente Lux II, 2)
  • The Babylonian spiritual culture in its relationship to the cultural development of humanity. Quelle & Meyer, Heidelberg 1907 (Science and Education: Individual Representations from All Areas of Knowledge, Vol. 15)
  • The youngest fighters against panbabylonism. JC Hinrichs, Leipzig 1907. (In the fight for the ancient Orient, vol. 2)
  • The foothills on the Nahr-el-Kelb and its monuments. JC Hinrichs, Leipzig 1909. (Der Alte Orient vol. 10, issue 4)
  • Middle East in the second millennium based on archival studies. JC Hinrichs, Leipzig 1913 (communications from the Near Eastern Society 4)

literature

  • Johannes Renger : The history of ancient oriental studies and the Near Eastern archeology in Berlin from 1875 to 1945 , In: Willmuth Arenhövel, Chista Schreiber (Hrsg.): Berlin and the ancient world. Essays , Wasmuth, Berlin 1979, pp. 151-192
  • Silvia Alaura: "To Boghasköi!" On the prehistory of the excavations in Boğazköy-Ḫattuša and on the archaeological research up to the First World War. Representation and documents , Münsterschwarzach, Vier-Türme GmbH, Benedict Press 2006. (Sendschrift der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft 13) ISBN 3-00-019295-6
  • Hans-Joachim Böttcher: "Winkler, Hugo", in: Significant historical personalities of the Dübener Heide, AMF - No. 237, 2012, pp. 107-108.

Web links

Commons : Hugo Winckler  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Lehmann : The Hittites. People of a thousand gods. C. Bertelsmann, Munich 1975, ISBN 3-570-02610-8 , pp. 37-49
personal data
SURNAME Winckler, Hugo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ancient orientalist
DATE OF BIRTH 4th July 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Graefenhainichen
DATE OF DEATH April 19, 1913
Place of death Berlin