James H. Breasted

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James H. Breasted, 1928

James Henry Breasted (born August 27, 1865 in Rockford , Illinois , † December 2, 1935 in New York ) was an American Egyptologist and historian .

Life

He studied pharmacy and Hebrew in Chicago . He graduated in pharmacy in 1886 and finished his studies in Hebrew in 1890. He then went to Yale University to study Semitic languages under William Rainey Harper . Harper encouraged him to study Egyptology in Berlin and promised to set up a professorship in Egyptology for him in Chicago on his return . In the following year Breasted traveled to Berlin to study Egyptian with Adolf Erman , Arabic and Hebrew . There he received his doctorate in 1894, making him the first American to receive a Dr. phil. received in Egyptology.

In 1894 he married a young American woman named Frances Hart, whom he had met in Germany. On his honeymoon he visited Egypt for the first time, where he was commissioned by Harper to procure antiques for the University of Chicago and to copy ancient inscriptions. There he visited u. a. some graves at Tell el-Amarna and Deir el-Bahari . He found that many hieroglyphic inscriptions published so far were inaccurate and decided to republish all of the inscriptions in Egypt.

Breasted was a lecturer from 1894 and from 1905 professor of Egyptology and the history of the Orient at the University of Chicago . In 1901 he was appointed director of the Haskell Oriental Museum . In 1919 he founded the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation and directed its archaeological research into Egypt. In 1919 he was accepted into the American Philosophical Society . In 1923 he was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences . His focus was on the collection of inscriptions , which is why Chicago is still a center of epigraphy today. On the way back from a trip to Egypt, he died of pneumonia in 1935.

Breasted coined the term Fertile Crescent (" Fertile Crescent ") for the area from Mesopotamia to the east coast of the Mediterranean . An essential contribution of Breasted to the understanding of the intellectual and historical development of Europe was his proof that the biblically based moral concepts had developed long before the so-called Revelation as the standard of ancient Egyptian thought. In his book The Dawn of Conscience , he proved that parts of the Old Testament were taken from Egyptian texts.

Since 1907 Breasted was a corresponding member of the Prussian and since 1931 of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . In 1934 he was elected a corresponding member of the British Academy .

Fonts

  • The Battle of Kadesh. 1903 ( digitized version ).
  • A History of Egypt from the earliest times to the Persian conquest. 1905 ( digitized version ).
  • A history of the ancient Egyptians. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1908 ( digitized ).
  • Ancient records of Egypt. Historical documents from the earliest times to the Persian conquest. Vol. I-V, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1906/07 ( online ).
  • The Temples of Lower Nubia. 1906.
  • Development of Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt. 1912 ( digitized version ).
  • Ancient times: A history of the early world. 1916 ( digitized ).
  • Survey of the Ancient World. 1919 ( digitized version ).
  • The Dawn of Conscience. 1933.

literature

  • Charles Breasted: Pioneer to the Past. The Story of James Henry Breasted, Archaeologist. University of Chicago Press, Chicago / London 1943 (Reprinted 1977, ISBN 0226071863 ).
  • Wolfgang Helck : Small Lexicon of Egyptology. 4th edition. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-447-04027-0 , p. 54.
  • John Larsson: Breasted, James Henry. In: Kathryn A. Bard (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Archeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge, London 1999, ISBN 0-415-18589-0 , pp. 177-178.
  • Jeffrey Abt: American Egyptologist. The Life of James Henry Breasted and the Creation of His Oriental Institute. University of Chicago Press, Chicago / London 2011, ISBN 9780226001104 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ With a ( Latin ) dissertation on the “ monotheistic ” hymns of the Amarna period : De Hymnis in solem sub rege Amenophide IV conceptis. Dissertatio inauguralis philologica ... the XV.m. Aug. Anni MDCCCXCIV publice defendet auctor I. Henricus Breasted Americanus. Typis Expressit B. Paul, Berolini 1894.
  2. ^ Member History: James H. Breasted. American Philosophical Society, accessed May 18, 2018 .
  3. ^ Members of the previous academies. James Henry Breasted. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences , accessed on March 2, 2015 .
  4. ↑ Member entry of James Henry Breasted at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on December 24, 2016.
  5. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed May 9, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Breasted, James H.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Breasted, James Henry (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Egyptologist and historian
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Rockford
DATE OF DEATH December 2, 1935
Place of death new York