Joachim Marzahn

Joachim Marzahn (born February 22, 1949 in Berlin ) is a German ancient orientalist and Near Eastern archaeologist . He was curator of the inscription collection (mainly cuneiform ) of the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin .

Career

Joachim Marzahn initially did an apprenticeship as a fitter and worked in this profession until 1970. He then worked as a tour guide and heating attendant at the State Museums in Berlin and also graduated from evening school . In 1974 he switched to the Vorderasiatisches Museum as an assistant. From 1974 to 1979 Marzahn studied Near Eastern Archeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the Martin Luther University in Halle . In 1979 he completed his studies with a diploma and began working at the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin . He was responsible for the inscription collectionsand has been head of department since 1990, curator since 1995 and chief curator since 2009 of the museum. During this time, Marzahn received his doctorate in 1989 at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena on the basics of the grain industry in Lagasch, 24th century BC

1975 took Marzahn at regular excavations in the Bulgarian Krivina ( Castle Iatrus part), 1981 rescue excavations in Iraq Mohra and Sahliya , ( Haditha Dam Project ) and 1989 rescue excavations in the Syrian Tell Abu Hgaira ( Habur Dam Project )

activities

Joachim Marzahn works primarily on the social and social history of Mesopotamia in antiquity , the cultural history of Assyria and Babylonia, and has published several editorial and text- analytical works on Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform documents (including administrative documents from the 3rd millennium BC ). As part of his museum work, he wrote numerous articles on scientific exhibition catalogs, on the history of science in ancient Near Eastern studies and several popular scientific works and carried out conceptual work for the expansion and re-planning of the Middle East Museum as well as for the development of the museum's holdings and text editions. As a curator, he was responsible for a number of exhibitions at home and abroad or was significantly involved in such, including "Resurrecting Assyria - 100 Years of German Excavations in Assyria" (2003), "Babylon, Myth and Truth" (2008, both in Berlin ) and "Kings on the Tigris - Assyrian palace reliefs in Dresden" (2004). He also worked on the editorships of scientific compilations in the field and of commemorative publications and was active as an author for various general reference works and specialist encyclopedias. In addition, Marzahn promoted public relations through numerous lectures and readings of ancient oriental literature as well as by participating in art, media and theater projects.

In 1990 Marzahn took up a part-time academic teaching activity and was a lecturer for ancient oriental languages ​​and written history for the universities of Berlin (Free University), Potsdam, Hamburg, Munich, Göttingen, Innsbruck and as a specialist supervisor for the University of Applied Sciences for Technology and Economics in Berlin and for the technical college Potsdam, where the teaching location was often moved to the museum in order to work with the original documents. In 2012, the Free University of Berlin appointed Marzahn an honorary professor in the subject of Ancient Near Eastern Studies.

Since the beginning of his professional career, Marzahn has been a participant in several national and international research and edition projects on topics of Assyriology and archeology of the Middle East as well as Hittitology and Semitic Studies (project locations: Berlin, Mainz, Toronto, Madrid, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Los Angeles).

Since 1991 Marzahn has been a member of the board of the German Orient Society in Berlin, since 1998 a corresponding member of the Turkish Institute for Classical Studies in Istanbul and since 2013 a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute.

Marzahn is also engaged in research on cultural-historical topics in the Berlin-Brandenburg area, for which he was also active as a journalist.

Fonts

• The inscriptions of the Assyrian kings on bricks from Assur I, (with Liane Jakob-Rost) inventory catalog 1st part, Berlin 1984.
• Sumerian inscriptions from the Vorderasiatisches Museum , Altorientalische Forschungen 14, Berlin 1987, 21–40.
• The inscriptions of the Assyrian kings on bricks from Babylon and Uruk II, inventory catalog 2nd part, research and reports 27, Berlin 1989, 53–64. 
• Basics of grain production in Lagas (dissertation), Jena 1989
• Babylon and the New Years Festival , Collection Guide, Berlin 1981: 6th edition, 1990. From 7th, greatly expanded edition: Mainz 1992, under the title "The Ishtar Gate of Babylon". From 8th edition, Mainz 1993, also in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese.
• The history of the clay tablet collection of the Vorderasiatisches Museum , in: H. Klengel - W. Sundermann (ed.). Egypt - Middle East - Turfan. Problems with the edition and processing of ancient oriental manuscripts, Berlin 1991, 30–50.    
• Old-numerical administrative texts from Girsu, Lagas , Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1991 (Near Eastern writing monuments of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, NF, H. 9 = H. 25) ISBN 3-05-000747-8
• Old numeric administrative texts and a letter from Girsu, Lagas , von Zabern, Mainz 1996 (Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmäler der Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, NF, H. 11 = H. 27) ISBN 3-8053-1904-5
• Resurrecting Assyria. 100 years of German excavations in Assyria (editor with Beate Salje ), von Zabern, Mainz 2003 (exhibition catalog) ISBN 3-8053-3250-5 and ISBN 3-8053-3251-3
• Kings on the Tigris - Assyrian palace reliefs in Dresden , edited by J. Marzahn, with the collaboration of K. Knoll and R. Thiel, ed. by the Skulpturensammlung, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, in cooperation with the Vorderasiatisches Museum der Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Prussian Cultural Heritage, Dresden - Mainz 2004.
• and Jöran Friberg, A Chain of Trapezoids with Fixed Diagonals , in: J. Friberg, Amazing Traces of a Babylonian Origin in Greek Mathematics, Singapore 2007, Appendix 1, 431-442.
• and Günter Schauerte (eds.), Babylon - Mythos and Truth, Vol. 1: Babylon - Truth , an exhibition of the Vorderasiatisches Museum, catalog for the exhibition, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, with the support of the Berlin State Library, Munich 2008.
• Benjamin Sass and Joachim Marzahn, Aramaic and Figural Stamp Impressions on Bricks of the Sixth Century BC from Babylon , 127th Scientific publication of the German Orient Society, Wiesbaden 2010.    
• On the perception of Babylon in public , communications from the German Orient Society 172, 2011, 181–189.
• and Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum and Margarete van Ess (eds.): Babylon. Knowledge culture in the Orient and Occident. TOPOI Berlin Studies of the Ancient World, Berlin-Boston 2011.    

Web links

• Literature by and about Joachim Marzahn in the catalog of the German National Library