Stefan Lehmann

This article deals with the archaeologist Stefan Lehmann. For more people with this name see Stephan Lehmann .

Stefan Lehmann (born November 13, 1951 in Caputh ), also Stephan Lehmann , is a German classical archaeologist .

Life

Stefan Lehmann studied Classical Archeology, Ancient History and Art and Cultural History at the Humboldt University in Berlin and at the University of Bonn . In 1985 he completed his studies with the master's examination and received his doctorate in 1987 in Bonn under Nikolaus Himmelmann with a thesis on the subject of magnificent mythological reliefs from the imperial era . Subsequently, he was curator of the exhibition Ancient Portraits from Yugoslavia at the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in Frankfurt am Main and employee at the Academic Art Museum Bonn . He also worked at the universities of Heidelberg , London (1991/1992: Honorary Research Fellow, Department of History, University College London) and Erlangen . Since 1994 he has been active in the German excavation in Olympia , where he first recorded the archaeological finds and findings on the statues of the Olympians and then dealt with the history of the sanctuary in the imperial era and late antiquity . Since 2002, Lehmann has been researching Olympia in late antiquity together with the ancient historian Andreas Gutsfeld from the University of Nancy as part of a research project . Between 2002 and 2007 he worked in Münster at the research company Christian State and "Panhellenic" Shrines, which is funded by the DFG . On the change of pagan cult sites in late ancient Greece. In 2016 he was appointed "Membre associé du Center de recherche pour les Histoire et Cultures de l'Antiquité et du Moyen-Age (HISCANT-MA) à l'Université de Lorraine".

At the University of Halle , Lehmann completed his habilitation in 1999/2000 with a work on the subject of statues of victors in Olympia . He was awarded his teaching qualification and authorization for the subject of Classical Archeology. In 2009 he was appointed adjunct professor of classical archeology. In addition to his teaching activities, Lehmann has been heading the Archaeological Museum of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg since 2007, succeeding Manfred Oppermann . In his responsibility or co-responsibility, the museum showed several exhibitions, including Oskar Kokoschka's Antike: A European Vision of Modernism (2010, together with Katja Schneider ), The False Augustus. A questionable bronze portrait of the first Roman emperor (2014), Goethe's very dearest Klytia - Metamorphoses of a Woman Bust (2016), The Discovery of Ancient Painting in the 18th Century: Turnbull - Paderni - Winckelmann (2017) and Ideale. Modern art since Winckelmann's antiquity (2018, together with Olaf Peters and Elisa Tamaschke). On the occasion of the 2013 conference of the university research and teaching collections, those responsible for collections at the University of Halle presented the first comprehensive publication of the university collections and museums under his leadership.

Lehmann worked as a visiting scholar at the University College and the Warburg Institute in London (1991/92), at the Archaeological Seminar of the University of Münster (2000–2002), at the Institute for Religious Studies at the University of Bremen (2002) and at the Winckelmann Institute at Humboldt University Berlin (2005), at the Weimarer Klassik und Kunstsammlungen Foundation (2005), at the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel (2008) and the Berlin State Museums (2011). In 2004 he was a professor at the Archaeological Institute of the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster. He managed the vacant professorship for Classical Archeology at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg from 2010 to 2012 and represented it in 2014 and 2016. In August 2018, he retired.

The focus of research in Lehmann's work is the visual language of Greek and Roman sculpture, the art and cultural history of ancient sport and its afterlife, ancient religious history, the cult topography of ancient sanctuaries with a focus on the imperial era and late antiquity, as well as the reception of antiquity and the history of science.

Outside the field, Lehmann became known as a critic of an exhibition of the Winckelmann Society in Stendal , to which he had belonged since 1974. A bronze bust of Alexander the Great from the property of the antique dealer Robin Symes was shown there. According to the exhibition organizer Max Kunze, the portrait should be an ancient original and renew knowledge of the portrait of the Macedonian ruler. Lehmann denied the authenticity and assigned the bronze image to the forgery workshop of the Spanish master. Due to the nature of the allegations raised in this connection, Lehmann came into conflict with parts of the Winckelmann Society, which expelled him on December 12, 2009 at the society's general meeting. This was followed by a judicial dispute between Max Kunze and the Winckelmann Society on the plaintiff's side and Stefan Lehmann as the defendant. In 2012 Lehmann made a public, written declaration of honor in which he regretted the defamatory attacks against Kunze and the Winckelmann Society. On March 8, 2012, the Naumburg Higher Regional Court confirmed the conviction of Stefan Lehmann for the omission of the allegations against Max Kunze and the Winckelmann Society. Nevertheless, the bust is a modern forgery of antiquities and an object of the illegal antiques trade.

An exhibition organized by Lehmann in Halle in 2014 “The wrong Augustus. A questionable bronze portrait of the first Roman emperor ”including a workshop, the results of which were published in 2015 under the title Authenticity and Originality of Ancient Bronze Images , deepened the problem of forgery of ancient bronze images and offered exemplary solutions. This publication was also immediately noticed by the international specialist community and, as the reviews can show, lively scholarly discussion. So far, there are no scientifically founded suggestions for corrections to the suspicious "Alexander Stendal" within the specialist department, which does not apply equally to other bronze works listed as suspicious in the catalog.

Fonts (selection)

As an author

• Magnificent mythological reliefs (= studies on the art of antiquity and its afterlife. Volume 1). Weiss, Bamberg 1996, ISBN 3-928591-80-0 (= dissertation University of Bonn 1988).
• Alexander the Great - once in Stendal. Original - copy - forgery? (= Catalogs and writings of the Archaeological Museum of the Martin Luther University. Volume 2). Halle (Saale) 2009, ISBN 978-3-941171-29-9 .
• Yesterday. Today! Tomorrow? The Archaeological Museum of the Martin Luther University in Halle in search of its place between tradition and modernity (= catalogs and publications of the Archaeological Museum of Martin Luther University. Volume 5). Halle 2013, ISBN 978-3-941171-83-1 .
• Goethe's very dearest Klytia - metamorphoses of a female bust (= catalogs and writings of the Archaeological Museum of the Martin Luther University. Volume 6). Halle 2016, ISBN 978-3-95741-046-7 .

As editor

• with Michael Wiemers : Andreas Puchta, The German Evangelical Church in Rome. Planning, building history, equipment (= studies on the art of antiquity and its afterlife. Volume 2). Weiss, Bamberg 1997, ISBN 3-928591-81-9 .
• with Andreas E. Furtwängler : Catalogs and publications of the Archaeological Museum of the Martin Luther University. Halle an der Saale 2008ff.
• with Ralph Einicke u. a .: Festschrift for Andreas E. Furtwängler. Back to the subject (= writings of the Center for Archeology and Cultural History of the Black Sea Region. Volume 16). 2 volumes. Beier & Beran, Langenweißbach 2009, ISBN 978-3-941171-16-9 .
• with Katja Schneider : Oskar Kokoschkas Antike. A European vision of modernity. Catalog of the Moritzburg Halle Foundation. Hirmer, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-7774-2581-8 .
• with Andreas Gutsfeld : The gymnastic agon in late antiquity. Computus Druck, Gutenberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-940598-18-9 .
• Academic collections and museums of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Martin Luther University, Halle 2013, ISBN 978-3-86829-597-9 .
• with Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert : Aegyptiaca and papyri from the Julius Kurth collection. Archaeological Museum of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, inventory catalog volume 1. Dresden 2014, ISBN 978-3-95498-134-2 .
• Authenticity and Originality of Ancient Bronze Portraits: A Forged Portrait of Augustus, Its Prerequisites and Its Surroundings / A Forged Portrait of Augustus, Its Prerequisites, and Its Surroundings. Contributions to the scientific workshop discussion in the Archaeological Museum of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg 2014. Sandstein, Dresden 2015, ISBN 978-3-95498-183-0 .
• with Michael Ruprecht: The academic collections and museums of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Sandstone Communication, Dresden 2017, ISBN 978-3-95498-306-3 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Stefan Lehmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Portrait of Stefan Lehmann on the website of the University of Halle
• Press release on uni-halle.de
• Portrait at Campus Halensis

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stephan Lehmann: With your back to history? On the relationship between classical archeology and history in the light of the Berlin Colloquium “Posthumanist Classical Archeology”. In: Th. Brüggemann u. a. (Ed.): Studia hellenistica et historiographica. Festschrift for Andreas Mehl. Gutenberg 2010, pp. 397-411.
2. ↑ Stephan Lehmann: Alexander the Great - once in Stendal: Original - Copy - Forgery? (= Catalogs and publications of the Archaeological Museum of the Martin Luther University. Vol. 2). Hall 2009; see review by Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway in: Bryn Mawr Classical Review , May 26, 2010 ( online ).
3. ↑ Christoph Schmälzle: Who knows the real antiquities? Don't shoot the critic: quarrel in Stendal's Winckelmann Society. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , December 4, 2010, p. 35. Christoph Schmälzle: Die Alexanderschlacht. The dispute in the Winckelmann Society comes to a head. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. December 7, 2010, p. 31. Patrick Bahners: The king has a heavy spike. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , May 30, 2011, p. 27. M. Schulz: Schwindel am Schmelzofen . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 2011, p. 160-163 ( online ). Patrick Bahners: Bloody hunger for bronzes. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. December 2, 2011, p. 31. From a legal perspective, see: Simon A. Lück, The scientific dispute over the forgery of an Alexander bust and the legal assessment. In: Stefan Lehmann: Authenticity and originality of antique bronze portraits: A fake Augustus portrait, its requirements and its surroundings. Sandstein, Dresden 2015, pp. 162–164, and on the journalistic assessment: Sönje Storm, The scientific suspicion of falsification in the mirror of the media. In: ibid, pp. 168-172.
4. ^ Professors' dispute : Lehmann rows back , Volksstimme.de, February 20, 2012 (accessed December 31, 2017).
5. ↑ OLG Naumburg, judgment of March 8, 2012 - 9 U 139/11 -
6. ↑ The events in Stendal are now dealt with in the context of the global trade in illegal cultural goods, see Günther Wessel : The dirty business with antiquity. The global trade in illegal cultural goods. Links, Berlin 2015, pp. 130–140.
7. ↑ Stephan Lehmann (Ed.): Authenticity and originality of ancient bronze portraits: a forged Augustus portrait, its requirements and its surroundings. Sandstone, Dresden 2015.
8. ↑ See the reviews of Martin Szewczyk, Revue Archéologique. Vol. 63, 2017, pp. 216-219 ( online ); Eric M. Moormann, BABESCH. Annual Papers on Mediterranean Archeology. Vol. 91, 2016, pp. 286-287. Also Sascha Kansteiner not represent more ancient origin of "Alexander Stendal", although he is familiar with the portrait as Alexander Kunze former exhibition staff, s. Sascha Kansteiner: authenticity and originality. On: H-Soz-Kult from April 11, 2016, accessed on May 21, 2017
9. ↑ Carol C. Mattusch , American Journal of Archeology, gives an extremely critical review . Vol. 121, No. 2, 2017 ( online ) the catalog. In particular, she rejected the suspicion of forgery in the bronze portrait de "Alexander Basel" as absurd for technical reasons. On the other hand, the suspicion of falsification was again substantiated in detail: Martin Dorka Moreno, 15 minutes of fame. A note on a (fake?) Bronze portrait of Alexander in New York . In: Göttingen Forum for Classical Studies 22 (2019), pp. 83–115 ( online ).