Leo Reinisch

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Leo Simon Reinisch, 1874

Leo Simon Reinisch , also Simon Leo Reinisch , later just Leo Reinisch (born October 26, 1832 in Osterwitz ; † December 24, 1919 in Maria Lankowitz ) was an Austrian linguist , Egyptologist , Africanist , pioneer of Mexican studies and also a university teacher.

Reinisch studied history, classical philology, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Arabic and Coptic at the University of Vienna from 1854 to 1858 . In 1859 he was at the University of Tübingen Dr. phil. PhD. At the University of Vienna he was a private lecturer from 1861, an associate professor from 1868 and a full university professor from 1873 . In particular, he researched the languages ​​of the peoples of Northeast Africa and is considered the founder of Egyptology and African studies in Austria. In 1884 he became a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences . In 1896/97 he was rector of the University of Vienna.

In 1935, Reinischgasse in Vienna- Döbling (19th district) was named after him.

Life

Leo Reinisch 1878
Leo Simon Reinisch, 1896, as rector of the University of Vienna (with rector chain).
The medals on his chest:
Guadalupe Officer, from Emperor Maximilian
Iron Crown , Austria, (unknown),
Wasa Order , Sweden
Mauritius & Lazarus Order , Italy
Eagle Order , from Emperor Maximilian

Childhood, youth, first scientific work

Leo Simon Reinisch was born on October 26th, 1832, the fifth of nine children on the single-shift small mountain farm "Schoberhof" in Osterwitz . Since he was already considered to be particularly inquisitive as a child, his parents had chosen him to be a priest (for poor people's children this was the only way to study). After completing the one-class elementary school in Osterwitz, at the age of 14, he went to the church high school in Graz , where he immediately attracted attention because of his linguistic talent. One of his teachers at the time, the later poet Robert Hamerling , certified him: "Excellent in exact translation, correct expression and precise knowledge of grammar".

After graduating from high school , Leo Simon Reinisch studied oriental languages ​​at the University of Vienna and received his doctorate in 1859 at the University of Tübingen with the thesis "On the name of Egypt among the Semites and Greeks". In 1861 he completed his habilitation as a private lecturer in the then very unusual and rare subject "History of the Orient including Egypt" at the University of Vienna.

In addition to his teaching and research activities in Vienna, Leo Simon Reinisch took on the editing and publication of the collection of important Egyptian antiquities that Archduke Maximilian brought back from a long trip to the Orient in 1855. The 1865 resulting publication "The Egyptian Monuments in Miramar " brought him the "Golden Medal for Art and Science" and the order of the Archduke, now Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, to set up an Egyptian department in the archaeological museum in Mexico . To this end, Leo Simon Reinisch undertook an extensive trip to Egypt in 1865/66, during which he gained many new insights and during which he also managed to find a sensational find, the inscription by Tanis .

Leo Simon Reinisch (right) with Robert Roesler (left), January 15, 1866 in Cairo

The inscription of Tanis

Together with the well-known Berlin Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius , Leo Simon Reinisch discovered in Tanis in 1866 the "inscription of Tanis", which is eminently important for Egyptology. It is a trilingual inscription in hieroglyphic, demotic and Greek in honor of Ptolemy III. (Ptolemy Euergetes) was drafted by the priests gathered in Canopus ( Canopus Decree ). In addition to its scientific value, this find was associated with a tangible dispute over the history of science over the authorship of the discovery.

Leo Simon Reinisch with his servant Jusuf, a former slave

Leo Simon Reinisch and his colleague Roesler took the first publication of the inscription by Lepsius under the title "Discovery of a bilingual decree by Lepsius" as an affront, since their role in the discovery was dismissed as a minor matter. They complained that "Prof. Lepsius' I was already more prominent than it is compatible with the rights of others"; In their publication "The bilingual inscription by Tanis published and translated for the first time" they described their thoroughly convincing view of the circumstances of the find and assumed that Lepsius had "a small memory impairment" in this regard. It was Leo Simon Reinisch who became aware of the stone in the ruins of Tanis and connected it to a tip previously received in Port Said regarding a Greek inscription.

Neither Lepsius nor Leo Simon Reinisch and Roesler noticed, however, that the stele also contained a demotic inscription; At the time it was found, it was still covered by rubble and was only discovered later, after the stone had been completely excavated (the publications by Lepsius and Leo Simon Reinisch therefore only speak of a “bilingual inscription”).

Further scientific work

In 1866 Leo Simon Reinisch followed Emperor Maximilian as his secret secretary to Mexico and began there - mostly at his own expense - to collect linguistic materials and to research Indian languages; Despite severe - politically and economically determined - hindrances to his research, he was able to achieve outstanding results and he is therefore assigned to the great pioneers of Mexican linguistics and history. After the bitter end of the emperor in 1867, Reinisch had to leave Mexico, and although he was able to spend the majority of his extensive collections in Austria, his intention to write a large documentary work on ancient Indian languages ​​remained, not least because of the lack of support from institutions and authorities in the Home, unrealized. Some of his collections came to France in the 1870s and 1880s, where a manuscript is still kept in the Bibliothèque Nationale in the Fonds Mexicain in Paris under the name “Mapa Reinisch”.

Admission certificate from Leo Simon Reinisch to the Academy of Sciences in Vienna

Leo Simon Reinisch worked from 1868 as an associate professor and from 1873 as a full professor for Egyptian language and antiquity at the University of Vienna . In the same year his programmatic work "The Uniform Origin of Languages ​​in the Old World" was published, which earned him the highest recognition. In 1884 he was elected a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and in 1896 rector of the University of Vienna. During his rector's time, the legal basis was created to allow women for the first time as regular students in the philosophical faculties of Austrian universities.

The use of African languages ​​in his extensive language comparisons also led Leo Simon Reinisch to a decades-long preoccupation with Northeast African languages, especially Cushitic . Two large linguistic research trips to Africa in 1875/76 and 1879/80 brought new knowledge and a large number of publications on around 20 different languages ​​and dialects. Leo Simon Reinisch's mastery of penetrating foreign languages ​​and reading the consequences of language history from the grammatical structure earned him worldwide recognition during his lifetime; he is still mentioned today as the "father of African studies " in all relevant works.

After Leo Simon Reinisch had sold his mountain farm "Reinischhof" (formerly "Schwaigwirt") in Sommereben near Stainz in 1897 , he spent most of the last years of his life in Maria Lankowitz , where he died on December 24, 1919 at the age of 87. He found his final resting place at the local cemetery, and his grave plaque on the church wall still reminds of him today.

  • Leo Reinisch with his first wife Luise, 1887

  • Leo Simon Reinisch in old age

  • Memorial plaque to Leo Simon Reinisch at the house where he was born in Osterwitz

  • Leo Simon Reinisch grave plaque on the church wall by Maria Lankowitz

  • Leo Reinisch Handwritten studies on hieroglyphics

  • Leo Reinisch Handwritten studies on hieroglyphs in an Egyptian royal tomb 1

  • Leo Reinisch Handwritten studies on hieroglyphs in an Egyptian royal tomb 2

The 150th birthday of the scholar, who is still known worldwide, was the occasion to honor him with an international "Leo Simon Reinisch Symposium" from October 22nd to 25th, 1982 in Vienna. On October 24th , a memorial plaque (see photo) with the following inscription was unveiled in the presence of 24 scientists from all over the world at his birthplace, the Schoberhof in Osterwitz :

In memory of
LEO REINISCH
- founder
of Egyptology and African Studies
in Austria -
born on October 26th, 1832
in this house,
died on December 24th, 1919
at Maria Lankowitz,
on the 150th anniversary of
his birthday.
EXEGIT MONUMENTUM AERE PERENNIUS.

The Latin quote from the Roman poet Horace, here slightly modified, reads in German translation: "He created a monument, more permanent than ore".

Honors

Leo Reinisch received numerous orders and honors throughout his life. After completing his rector years, he was awarded the " Kuk Austro-Hungarian Decoration of Honor for Art and Science ", and in 1899 he was awarded the title of Hofrat. On his 70th birthday in 1902 - which was also associated with his retirement - he received the highest academic honors from well-known scholars. In addition, the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna presented him with a gold medal of honor (with copies in bronze) designed by Anton Scharff (see photos): The front contains the bust of the jubilee with the inscriptions "LEO REINISCH" / "ANNO AETATIS LXX", the reverse shows a resting sphinx with the overlying inscription "MULTAS INVENIT LINGUAS CUM QUAERERET UNAM" (translation: "In search of one he explored many languages") and a hieroglyphic quote on its base, which in the translation is "The writings of the god Thoth [were] on his tongue" (the original "for the price of a hierogrammat" is in Cairo).

  • Medal of Honor obverse

  • Medal of Honor back

In 1904 Leo Reinisch was awarded the "Commander's Cross of the Franz Joseph Order with the Star", in 1909 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen and on his 80th birthday in 1912 he received one from the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna Parchment artistically designed certificate of honor with the following text (source original document):

DEAR COLLEAGUE!

The Imperial Academy of Sciences approaches you on the day you turn eighty to offer you its homage to congratulations; After all, your entire endeavors were directed towards science for your entire life.

Inclination led you to language research and its secrets. Starting from Egyptology, you established your scientific reputation more than half a century ago by publishing pharaonic monuments, and you set yourself the important goal of helping to solve the problem of human language. As science scouts, they used life and health to get the material themselves. So you, the son of the Styrian mountains, have taken many years of hard, self-sacrificing research under the glow of the African sun, the immense material of nearly twenty languages ​​and dialects from the mouths of the natives and scientifically processed with admirable diligence - truly a task, the solution could only be hoped for from a God-gifted age with never flagging resilience. The number of your pioneering works is great, the fruits of this tireless, happy and glorious life's work.

As first as the founder of Egyptology in our fatherland, we honor in you today the master of Hamito-Abyssinian linguistics who is celebrated all over the world. But not enough, you have also fertilized your home soil with rich seeds: because our academy owes the undertaking of further fruitful research in the linguistic direction you have taken to your stimulation and energy.

The Imperial Academy looks at you with pride and has counted you, for more than a generation, to whom you have always stood up for the advancement of your interests with boldness.

So let us express the heartfelt joy that we are privileged to be able to congratulate you today on the threshold of the ninth decade with unbroken mental and physical vigor. May your creative power be preserved for many years to the glory of science!

Vienna, October 26, 1912.

The Imperial Academy of Sciences:

(Signature) Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
President. 		(Signature) Viktor von Lang
Vice President.
(Signature) Friedrich Becke
Secretary General. 		(Signature) Joseph von Karabacek
Secretary.

Fonts

  • together with E. Robert Roesler: The bilingual inscription by Tanis published for the first time and translated by S. Leo Reinisch and E. Robert Roesler , Vienna 1866 ( digitized 1 , digitized 2 )
  • The Uniform Origin of Languages ​​in the Old World , 1873
  • Egyptian Chrestomathy , 2 volumes, 1873/75
  • The Afar Language , 3 Volumes, 1886–1887
  • The Bilin Language , 2 volumes, 1887
  • The Languages ​​of Northeast Africa , 3 volumes, 1874–1879
  • The Nuba Language , 2 volumes, 1879
  • The Saho language , 2 volumes, 1890
  • The Somali language , 2 volumes, 1900/02

literature

Literature on the "Inscription of Tanis" and the scholars' dispute

  • S. Leo Reinisch, E. Robert Roesler: The bilingual inscription by Tanis for the first time published and translated by S. Leo Reinisch and E. Robert Roesler. Vienna 1866 ( digitized 1 , digitized 2 ).
  • Stefan Pfeiffer: The decree of Kanopos (238 BC), commentary and historical evaluation of a trilingual synodal decree of the Egyptian priests in honor of Ptolemy III. and his family. Munich 2004.
  • Karl Richard Lepsius: The bilingual decree of Canopus. In the original size with translation and explanation of both texts. Berlin 1866.
  • Christian Tietze, Eva R. Lange, Klaus Hallof: A new copy of the canopic decree from Bubastis. In: Archives for Papyrus Research. Volume 51, 2005, pp. 1-29.

Further literature

Magazines and newspapers

Web links

Commons : Leo Reinisch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Reinisch, Leo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reinisch, Simon Leo (full name); Reinisch, Leo Simon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian Egyptologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1832
PLACE OF BIRTH Osterwitz
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 1919
Place of death Maria Lankowitz