Hamada Kosaku

This article is about a Japanese archaeologist. For the Japanese historian born in 1949, see Kosaku Hamada (Historian) .

Hamada Kosaku

Hamada Kōsaku ( Japanese 濱 田 耕作 ; * February 22, 1881 in Kishiwada ; † July 25, 1938 in Kyoto ), also Hamada Seiryō ( 浜 田 青 陵 ), was one of the first modern Japanese archaeologists . His main merit lay in the systematization of the still young archaeological research in Japan.

biography

Hamada Kōsaku was born as the son of Hamada Gonjuro in Osaka. He attended the 3rd high school ( 第三 高等学校 , Dai-san Kōtō Gakkō ) in Kyoto for a few years .

He majored in European history at the Imperial University of Tokyo . His final thesis in 1905 dealt with the influence of Greek culture on the East. After further studies, including archeology, he took a position as a history teacher at the Waseda high school.

He began contributing to the art magazine Kokka ( 國 華 ), which published his more important articles for many years.

He was appointed lecturer ( koshi ) at the newly created archaeological institute of the Imperial University of Kyoto in 1909.

In 1911 he traveled to Beijing to examine some of the Buddhist manuscripts found in the Dunhuang Grottoes ( Chinese  敦煌 ). On a subsequent trip through northern China, he was very impressed by Chinese Buddhist sculpture. On the way back he took part in archaeological field research for the first time near Port Arthur in an excavation of Han times graves. The fascination that this activity exerted on him never let go of the rest of his life. However, he remained very interested in art history.

Immediately after his appointment as assistant professor in 1913, he was sent to Europe for three years to study. He used this time in Great Britain (studies with WMF Petrie ), Italy and Greece to familiarize himself with the status and methods of European archeology.

After his return he became a full professor in 1917, in the same year he obtained the academic degree of bungaku-hakushi . He then built his institute into the leading institution in his field in Japan. His Tsuron Kokogaku in 1922 was particularly influential .

When visiting the Swedish crown prince in Korea in 1925, he headed the organized in his honor excavations. A second trip to Europe took him in 1927, first to the Scandinavian countries, but also to the Niaux cave in France and to Spain .

In October 1930 he took over the post of dean of the literary faculty of his university for two years. In 1931 he was elected to the Imperial Academy of Sciences . Together with Mizuno Seiichi , he devoted himself to the first description of the Hongshan culture in 1935 .

In July 1937 he was appointed president of the university and was faced with the difficult task of solving the financial problems that arose.

He died on July 25, 1938 in Kyoto, where he had lived in the Sakyō-ku .

swell

• Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan Vol. III
• Berend Wispelwey (Ed.): Japanese Biographical Archive . Fiche 152, KG Saur, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-598-34014-1
• Obituary: Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies Vol. III, pp 407-29 (contains bibliography of 249 titles)

Literature and works

• "Collected Works"; Japanese: 14 volumes

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Hamada is the family name, Kōsaku the first name.