Adolf Erman

Johann Peter Adolf Erman ( [ ɛʀmɑ ]; born October 31, 1854 in Berlin, † June 26, 1937 ibid ), actually Adolphe Jean Pierre Erman, was a German Egyptologist and the founder of the Berlin School of Egyptology.

Erman came from his father's side of the Huguenot family Erman, which developed in Berlin for a scholarship dynasty. He was the son of Georg Adolf Erman, professor of physics at the University of Berlin and Johanne Marie Bessel, a daughter of the astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel. He studied Egyptology at Leipzig Georg Ebers, where he was a member of the fraternity Leipzig Germania, and Lepsius in Berlin. Since 1885 he was an associate professor of Egyptology at the University of Berlin and director of the Egyptian Museum; as "quarter Jew " he was excluded in 1934 from the faculty. As director of the museum, he published his collection of regular publications held in the appearing since 1889 messages from the Oriental collections. He made important contributions to the study of the ancient Egyptian language, their relationship to the Semitic languages ​​, he worked out.

1897 requested the academies of Berlin, Saxony, Göttingen and Munich under the direction of Erman a project for a new Egyptian dictionary the German emperor. For Leipzig, signed Georg Stein Dorff, Munich, it was Georg Ebers, the predecessor of Steinsdorff in Leipzig and former teacher of Erman, Gottingen Richard Pietschmann, a student of Lepsius and boar. Since continuous excavations of temples and tombs tons of new texts brought to light Erman wanted to start from scratch, without taking into account the previously achieved level of dictionaries by Heinrich Brugsch. The dictionary of the Egyptian language was published from 1926 to 1931 in five volumes and two supplementary volumes. It is even today still largely in a valid collection of written words in hieroglyphics for the monuments of Lepsius. Involved were about Hermann Grapow and Erman's pupils Kurt Sethe.

Since 1882 he published the magazine for Egyptian language and archeology together with Heinrich Brugsch. The religion of the Egyptians was Erman over distances. Since his youth, Erman wrote beyond small unpublished poems and short stories. Erman married on October 11, 1884 Kathe d' Heureuse.

Writings (selection )

• The plural form of the Egyptian, a grammatical attempt Engelmann, Leipzig 1878.
• Late Egyptian Grammar, Engelmann, Leipzig 1880.
• Egypt and the Egyptian life in antiquity, Volume 1, Laupp'sche bookstore, Tübingen 1885.
• Egypt and the Egyptian life in antiquity, Volume 2, Laupp'sche bookstore, Tübingen. These volumes were also translated into English in 1887.
• The language of the papyrus Westcar. (1889 )
• Spells for both mother and child from the Papyrus 3027 in the Berlin Museum, Publishing House of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Berlin, 1901.
• Aegyptisches Glossary, the more frequent words of the Egyptian language, Reuther & Reichard, 1904 in Berlin: Porta linguarum Orientalium, . Collection of textbooks for the study of Oriental languages ​​. Vol XX.
• The Egyptian religion, Reimer, Berlin, 1905 In: . Manuals of the Royal Museums of Berlin. Also translated into English.
• Adolf Erman and Hermann Grapow: Aegyptisches pocket dictionary, of, Reuther & Reichard, Berlin 1921.
• The literature of the Egyptians. (1923 )
• With Hermann Grapow: Dictionary of the Egyptian Language, 13 volumes. . (1926-1963)
• My Will and my work (1929 )
• The religion of the Egyptians: Your Will & misdemeanor in 4 millennia. de Gruyter, Berlin / Leipzig 1934.