Karl Weber (archaeologist)

Karl Jakob von Weber (born August 12, 1712 in Arth , † February 15, 1764 in Naples ), known in Italy as Don Carlos Weber , was a Swiss military engineer and amateur archaeologist .

Weber graduated from the upper secondary school of the Jesuit College in Lucerne from 1729 to 1731 and then from 1731 to 1735 studied mathematics at the Collegio Ghislieri in Pavia .

The military engineer Weber, last in the rank of colonel, came to the excavation sites of Herculaneum , Pompeii and Stabiae in Campania in 1748 as assistant to excavation manager Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre . Unlike his superior de Alcubierre, who was only a treasure hunter, Weber brought more scientific methods to the excavations. For example, he drew the first partial plans of Pompeii, kept an excavation diary and proceeded methodically to a certain extent. Since de Alcubierre envied his ability, he sabotaged Weber. In his letters about the Herculanean discoveries , Johann Joachim Winckelmann did not give de Alcubierre a good hair after his visit to the excavation site in 1758, but praised Weber, without whom - in his opinion - the location of the excavations on Vesuvius would have been much more catastrophic:

Since this Don Rocco rose higher with this time, the sub-supervision and the driving of the underground places and crypts was given to an engineer from Switzerland, Mr. Karl Weber, who is itzo major; and all the good arrangements that have been made afterwards are to be thanked to this intelligent man.

His most important work was the exploration of the Villa dei Papiri in Herculaneum in the years 1750 to 1765. From 1758 (?) To 1764 Weber was de Alcubierre's deputy excavation manager in Pompeii. Here, under his direction, the tomb of Mamia and the tomb of the Istacidians were uncovered. His discoveries sparked a wave of interest and enthusiasm for antiquities in Europe. Today Karl Weber is considered one of the founders of modern archeology.

Weber had a younger brother, Franz Dominik von Weber , who was Brigadier General in the Tschudi regiment of the Pontifical Swiss Guard.

literature

• Christopher Charles Parslow: Rediscovering Antiquity. Karl Weber and the Excavation of Herculaneum, Pompeii and Stabiae . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge - New York - Melbourne 1995, ISBN 0-521-47150-8 .
• Christopher Charles Parslow: Karl Weber and Pompeian archeology . In: Ercolano 1738–1988: 250 anni di ricerca archeologica . Rome 1993, pp. 51-56.
• Franco Strazzullo: Alcubierre - Weber - Paderni. Un difficile "tandem" nello scavo di Ercolaneo - Pompei - Stabia . Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti, Napoli 1999 (Memorie dell'Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti in Napoli, 12).
• Oliver Landolt: Weber, Karl Jakob von. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . December 3, 2013 , accessed April 25, 2019 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Weber in the catalog of the German National Library