Michael Müller-Karpe

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Michael Müller-Karpe (born February 4, 1955 in Munich ) is a German Near Eastern archaeologist and research associate at the Prehistory Department of the Roman-Germanic Central Museum in Mainz .

resume

Müller-Karpe is the son of the prehistorian Hermann Müller-Karpe . He studied Prehistory and Early History , Near Eastern Archeology and Assyriology , Arabic , Classical Archeology , Egyptology and Ancient History at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg , the Saarland University in Saarbrücken and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. In 1987 Müller-Karpe received his doctorate from the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg with his dissertation Metal Vessels in Iraq, from the Beginnings to the Akkad Period .

Müller-Karpe was the first curator of the Vortaunus Museum in Oberursel , which he set up and established from 1971 to 1974 together with the Prehistoric Working Group of the Oberursel History Association. The prehistory working group of the Oberurseler Geschichtsverein was initiated by Michael Müller-Karpe together with his brother Andreas Müller-Karpe . Since 1976 he has been studying Mesopotamian metal objects in museums in Iraq, Great Britain, France, Denmark, the USA and Germany. Between 1985 and 1990 he was in charge of the Uruk Warka collection at the University of Heidelberg . This activity was connected with the establishment of a permanent collection (1985 to 1990).

The main research area of ​​Müller-Karpes is metal finds from Mesopotamia . Since 1974 he has been in Iraq regularly . He has participated in numerous excavations in Iraq since 1974 and has been responsible for the coordination of the museum's activities in the Middle East, especially in Iraq, at the Roman-Germanic Central Museum in Mainz since 1993. In addition, Müller-Karpe was involved in archaeological excavations in Germany, Great Britain, Egypt and Oman.

Commitment to the protection of cultural assets

Müller-Karpe is vehemently committed to the illegal worldwide art trade, the illegal procurement of works of art ( stealing antiquities ), robbery and the purchase of stolen objects from looting, illegal excavations and robberies. He also opposes legislation that even subsidizes stolen goods with tax breaks, such as donation receipts. He advises the cultural committee of the German Bundestag on questions of the protection of cultural property (ratification of the UNESCO cultural property protection agreement of 1970, UNESCO agreement on measures to prohibit and prevent the illegal import, export and transfer of cultural property ). Since 2005 he has been conducting criminal archaeological investigations (expert reports) for the police, customs and public prosecutors.

When it comes to the protection of cultural property and the fight against the illegal trade in ancient artefacts, Müller-Karpe is considered an important expert among archaeologists, specialist journalists and investigators. He was successful here several times in that he was able to enforce the return of objects illegally excavated or stolen from museums. Most recently, in February 2011, a Sumerian battle ax that had been stolen from a museum and had been seized in a Munich auction house in 2004 was returned to the Ambassador of Iraq. The ambassador thanked Müller-Karpe with the words "he is a one-man-fighter". However, when confronted with the art trade, Müller-Karpe is also exposed to fierce criticism: In a judgment by the Frankfurt am Main Administrative Court on June 2, 2010, Müller-Karpe's sometimes uncompromising attitude is sharply criticized. In November 2010, Müller-Karpe commented on the grave robbery by ex-RTL boss Helmut Thoma .

Selected publications

  • Metal vessels in Iraq I. From the beginning to the Akkad era . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 978-3-515-05864-3 (Prehistoric Bronze Finds Volume II, 14; also his dissertation from 1987).
  • together with Harald Hauptmann : The metal industry in Mesopotamia from the beginnings to the 2nd millennium BC BC Catalog of the examined metal objects from Iraq and Syria and results of the X-ray fluorescence and neutron activation analyzes. VML Verlag Marie Leidorf, Rahden / Westfalen 2004, ISBN 978-3-89646-633-4 .

In addition, Müller-Karpe wrote numerous articles, including in the archaeological correspondence sheet , in the Archive for Orient Research , in the yearbook of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz , the communications of the German Orient Society , the Journal of Near Eastern Studies as well as numerous lemmas in the Reallexikon der Assyriologie and Near Eastern Archeology .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniel Gerlach, Berlin: From Ur or from Troy? In: FAZ.net . June 29, 2009, accessed December 16, 2014 .
  2. idw-online.de
  3. ^ Controversy about art breach of law with smoking cauldron ( Memento from June 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) fr-online.de
  4. DISPUTE ABOUT ART Debate - 25 - 6 - 2010 Breach of law with incense kettle ( Memento from February 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) fr-online.de
  5. www.swr.de