Karl-Heinz Priese

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Karl-Heinz Priese (born June 25, 1935 in Ziesar ; † January 27, 2017 ) was a German Egyptologist , Sudan archaeologist and meroitist . As curator and director of the Egyptian Museum and the papyrus collection from 1978 to 2000, he made lasting contributions to the post-war history of this internationally important museum.

Life and accomplishments

Karl-Heinz Priese explored his home region around Ziesar as a child and teenager. He passed his Abitur at the Schulpforta grammar school in Naumburg , which the other important Egyptologists and directors of the Berlin Collection of Antiquities, Karl Richard Lepsius and Rudolf Anthes , had already attended. In the school library he became aware of the older volumes of the Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde , which aroused his interest in Egyptology. After graduating from high school, he majored in Egyptology from 1954 to 1958 at the Humboldt University in Berlin . Subsequently, until 1978 he was first assistant, later senior assistant at the University's Egyptological Institute. From 1960 to 1969 he took part in the Butana expedition and in excavations as part of the Sudan expeditions of the Humboldt University in Berlin under the direction of Fritz Hintze in Musawwarat es Sufra in Sudan . The drawings he made here are evidence of great artistry and are still an important basis for research today. His dissertation  A from 1964, supervised by Fritz Hintze, deals with the subject of the Meroitic language material in the Egyptian inscriptions of the kingdom of Kush and his dissertation B from 1974, also examined by Fritz Hintze, with studies on the topography of the "Ethiopian" Nile valley in Antiquity and the Meroitic language . Priese developed into a specialist in the history, cultural history and language of the Empire of Kush .

From 1978 Priese was custodian ("department head") at the Egyptian Museum and the papyrus collection of the State Museums in Berlin . He exchanged his position as a research assistant at the university with Steffen Wenig , who was curator at the museum until then. At the Humboldt University, however, he continued to teach until after his retirement, particularly on the subject of the Nubian languages (Meroic and Old Nubian ). Since 1988 he has succeeded Wolfgang Müller as director of the museum. Shortly after starting work, he began a revision of the collection, the war losses of which had not yet been adequately investigated. In addition, he maintained active connections to research institutions outside the GDR, including the West Berlin Collection of Antiquities, which also housed part of the old collection. He did all of this under the problematic conditions that were typical of such work in the GDR. Like his predecessor, Priese always kept the East Berlin collection open to researchers from home and abroad and thus internationally involved. Particularly close connections were established with the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim and its director at the time, Arne Eggebrecht . Thanks to these connections, the East Berlin Museum made no fewer than 60 high-quality objects available on loan for the major Hildesheim special exhibition “ Egypt's Rise to World Power ” in 1987 - a process that was anything but common at the time. Priese played a key role in redesigning the museum as part of the renovation of the Bode Museum , which was then the location of the East Berlin collection. This concept, which was modern for the circumstances at the time, was received very positively, as was the “guidelines” it created. Like the picture catalog published in 1991, it is still in use today. Before reopening, he and Ingeborg Müller designed a special exhibition of Egyptian art from Berlin for Japan. This was shown in five cities and reached more than half a million visitors. Also for the exhibition “Egypt. Gods, Graves and Art - 4000 Years of Belief in the Beyond "in Linz (1989)," Il senso dell'arte nell'antico Egitto "in Bologna (1990)," Egypt's dazzling sun "in Cleveland (1992)," Muinainen Egypti "in Tampere (1993) and “Sudan. Ancient Kingdoms on the Nile ”in Munich (1996) were loaned in a noteworthy manner during this period.

After 1990, Priese formed a dual leadership with Dietrich Wildung . After 1989 he was also able to collect the entire holdings of the Berlin collections, which was largely completed by his retirement in 2000. In addition to taking stock, Priese devoted himself in particular to the conception of special exhibitions that opened up the holdings that were temporarily inaccessible in both East and West. After his retirement, Dietrich Wildung remained the sole head of the collection, which was also physically reunited from 2009 onwards. Even after his retirement, Priese remained a volunteer at the museum until his unexpected death. His knowledge of the holdings was of particular value when designing the new permanent exhibition in 2009, for example. On his initiative and planning, for example, the three sacrificial chambers from the Old Kingdom were reorganized . In doing so, he followed the paths he had taken at an early stage; as early as 1984, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Richard Lepsius' death, a colored plaster cast of the Merib's sacrificial chamber was built into the presentation of the East Berlin collection. Priese also helped with the review and organization of the archives in preparation for digitizing the holdings. Although Günther Roeder began to collect the archival documents in brown C-6 envelopes, they were given the internal name “Priese-Tüten” because of Priese's intensive occupation with the material. He was also part of the team that worked out the concept for the New Museum to be rebuilt . He is considered the director of the collection, to whom it returned its identity after the Second World War .

Priese was a recognized expert for the Sudan of antiquity, especially the empire of Kush and its capital Meroe (Meroitistik). Here he was considered one of the leading international specialists, especially the Meroitic language . In 1992 he published Das Gold von Meroe, a basic work on this complex of topics. In addition to Egyptology and Sudan archeology, Priese also carried out research at the local level and was a recognized expert on medieval epitaphs from the Berlin-Brandenburg region . Here, too, he was distinguished by his meticulousness in the careful recording, documentation and research and thus laid the foundations for research into this type of monument in the region. As when he was a schoolboy, he often rode his bike or public transport to record these monuments or to research sources in archives. Priese owned one of the most extensive archives on the subject, containing photographs, drawings and written documents. Here, too, he published his research results on various occasions.

Fonts

  • The Meroitic language material in the Egyptian inscriptions of the Empire of Kush. Berlin 1965 [machine-written dissertation].
  • Studies on the topography of the "Ethiopian" Nile valley in antiquity and on the Meroitic language. Berlin 1971 [typed habilitation thesis (dissertation B)].
  • The Merib's sacrificial chamber. Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, Berlin 1984.
  • The Egyptian Museum. Guidance. Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, Berlin 1989.
  • with Liane Jakob-Rost , Evelyn Klengel-Brandt , Joachim Marzahn , Ralf-Bernhard Wartke , Max Kunze , Arne Effenberger : Pergamon- und Bodemuseum (also = special issues on the ancient world ). Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1990, ISBN 3-8053-1289-X (museum edition), ISBN 3-8053-1186-9 (book trade edition) [alternative title: Ancient world on the Berlin Museum Island ; Priese wrote the parts for the Egyptian Museum].
  • Publisher: Egyptian Museum. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1991, ISBN 3-8053-1184-2 (book trade edition), ISBN 3-8053-1230-X (museum edition).
  • The gold of Meroe. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1992, ISBN 3-8053-1480-9 .
    • English edition: The Gold of Meroe. Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1993, ISBN 0870996843 .

literature

  • Caris Beatrice Arnst (Ed.): Encounters - ancient cultures in the Nile valley. Festival ceremony for Erika Endesfelder, Karl-Heinz Priese, Walter Friedrich Reineke and Steffen Wenig. Wodtke and Stegbauer, Leipzig 2001, ISBN 3-934374-02-6 .
  • Klaus Finneiser , Jana Helmbold-Doyé (editor): The other view. Thirst for research and thirst for knowledge. Museum gift for the 80th birthday of Karl-Heinz Priese. EB-Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-86893-192-1 .
  • Klaus Finneiser, Jana Helmbold-Doyé, Friederike Seyfried: Sort, revise, organize. Work behind the scenes. Obituary for Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Priese. * June 25, 1935 † January 27, 2017. In: aMun. Magazine for friends of Egyptian museums and collections. Issue 54, 2017 digital .

Web links

supporting documents

  1. see employee directories in the yearbook of researches and reports of the State Museums for the corresponding years
  2. ↑ on this Henning Wrede : Archeology: Reconstruction, Marxist redefinition and struggle for survival - new constitution. In: Self-assertion of a vision (= history of the University of Unter den Linden 1810–2010. Practice of its disciplines. Volume 6). Pp. 409-424, especially p. 419.
  3. on the importance of Priese, especially for meroitistics, see Francis Breyer : Introduction to Meroitistics (= introductions and source texts for Egyptology. Volume 8). LIT, Münster / Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-643-12805-8 , in various places
  4. so most recently with a contribution in: Leonhard Helten (editor): The Havelberger Dombau and its charisma. Lukas Verlag, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86732-120-4 .