Olaus Wormius

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Ole Worm, after a painting by Carl van Mandern

Olaus Wormius , Latinized for Ole Worm (born May 13, 1588 in Aarhus ; † August 31, 1654 in Copenhagen ), was a doctor , imperial archivist of Denmark and one of the founders of Scandinavian archeology .

Life

He was the son of the Mayor of Aarhus from a family of Dutch Protestants. After attending grammar school in Aarhus, he studied in Marburg , Gießen , Padua and Basel , where he obtained a doctorate in medicine in 1605 . He practiced as a doctor for some time, also in England , but from 1613 onwards he held a chair in classical antiquity and Greek at the University of Copenhagen . In 1617 he was awarded a master's degree from the University of Copenhagen . At times he was also rector there .

Archaeological activity

Worm took up large stone graves and runic inscriptions . In 1626 he caused King Christian IV to send a circular to all Danish pastors to report rune stones , old graves and other antiquities in their parish . He interpreted large stone graves as thing places and sacrificial altars, analogously flint blades and daggers were called sacrificial knives. In the case of arrowheads, he was unsure whether it was a product of man or nature; he thought a pierced stone ax blade made of flint was the fossil of an originally iron ax. He attributed urns from the late Bronze Age to the ancient Danes. In his work he draws heavily on the Thuringian archaeologist Nicolaus Marschalk (around 1470–1525), who was one of the first to open grave mounds in Mecklenburg .

collection

View of the Wormianum Museum

Worm was an avid collector and systematically organized this collection of plants, animals, stones, and artifacts . His cabinet of curiosities, the Museum Wormianum in Copenhagen, was widely known, and a catalog was published posthumously by his son. The collection is now part of the Geological Museum in Copenhagen .

Work as a doctor

Worm is the discoverer of the " Worm bones " named after him , multiple switching bones in the cranial sutures . At times he was the personal physician of the Danish King Christian IV.

Influences

Worm had received the work of the German humanist Nicolaus Marschalk , who had already excavated giant stone graves and barrows in Mecklenburg around 1510. Images of the Torgau doctor and antiquarian Johannes Kentmann are part of the collection of the Wormianum Museum (1655).

Impact history

Gold horns from Gallehus, drawing by Olaus Wormius

Johann Just Winckelmann (1620–1699), who also mentions giant stone graves and other antiquities in his Notitia historico-politica veteris Saxo-Westphaliae (Oldenburg 1667), is strongly influenced by Wormius, whom he calls "Fautor olim meus". Also Nicolaus Schaten , who in his Historia Westphaliae identified as tombs and altars giant stone graves, refers to Wormius. Worm was in correspondence with numerous scholars, including the British antiquarian Walter Charleton (1619–1707), who ascribed Stonehenge to the old Danes in his work Chorea Gigantum ( London 1663) . Thomas Hearne (1678-1735), who described the British Early Bronze Age urns as Danish, relied on the work of Wormius. Thomas Tanner (1674–1735), who identified the megalithic grave of Millbarrow on the Salisbury plain as the burial place of a Danish military leader, cited comparable graves that Wormius had described in Denmark, as did Francis Wise (1695–1767) Neolithic tomb from Wayland's Smithy . Later on, megalithic tombs would be ascribed to the Celts for the same reasons .

Honors

After him, the plant genera are Wormia Rottb. and Neowormia Hutch. & Summerh. named from the rose apple family (Dilleniaceae).

Fonts

  • Fasti Danici , Copenhagen 1626.
  • Runir seu Danica literatura antiquissima , 1636.
  • De aureo cornu , 1641 (about the golden horns of Gallehus ).
  • Danicorum monumentorum Libri Sex , J. Moltke, Copenhagen 1643.
  • Willum Worm (Ed.): Museum Wormianum , Leyden 1655.

literature

  • Peter Berghaus (arr.): The archaeologist. Graphic portraits from the Diepenbroick portrait archive . Ed .: Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe, Westphalian State Museum for Art and Cultural History. Westphalian State Museum for Art and Cultural History, Regional Association Westphalia-Lippe, Münster 1983, ISBN 3-88789-062-0 .
  • Glyn Daniel : History of Archeology . Corvus, Cologne 1990, ISBN 3-87540-153-0 (English: A short history of archeology . Translated by Joachim Rehork).
  • Ole Klindt-Jensen: A history of Scandinavian archeology . Thames and Hudson, London 1975, ISBN 0-500-79006-X (English, Danish: En historie om skandinavisk arkæologi . Translated by G. Russel Poole).
  • Jul. Petersen: Worm, Ole . In: Carl Frederik Bricka (Ed.): Dansk biografisk Lexikon. Tillige omfattende Norge for Tidsrummet 1537-1814. 1st edition. tape 19 : Vind – Oetken . Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag, Copenhagen 1905, p. 186-195 (Danish, runeberg.org ).
  • Stuart Piggott : Ancient Britons and the Antiquarian Imagination . Thames and Hudson, London 1989, ISBN 0-500-01470-1 (English).
  • Henrik Ditlev Schepelern: Wormianum Museum: Dets Forudsætninger og Tilblivelse . Wormianum, Aarhus 1971, ISBN 87-85160-05-9 (Danish).
  • Paul Hans Stemmermann: The Beginnings of German Prehistory . Kabitzsch, Leipzig 1934, DNB  578593939 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lotte Burkhardt: Directory of eponymous plant names - Extended Edition. Part I and II. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin , Freie Universität Berlin , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-946292-26-5 doi: 10.3372 / epolist2018 .

Web links

Commons : Ole Worm  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Wormius, Olaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish prehistoric and imperial antiquarian of Denmark; is considered one of the founders of Scandinavian archeology
DATE OF BIRTH May 13, 1588
PLACE OF BIRTH Aarhus
DATE OF DEATH August 31, 1654
Place of death Copenhagen