Georg Steindorff
Georg Stein Dorff ( born November 12, 1861 in Dessau; † August 28, 1951 in North Hollywood, California ) was a German Egyptologist. He is considered one of the outstanding representatives of his profession in Germany and Adolf Erman and next to Ludwig Borchardt most significant representative of second generation German Egyptologist.
Life
Georg Steinsdorff studied Egyptology at the seminar of the University of Göttingen. Probably as early as the beginning of his studies, he converted from Judaism to Protestantism. He received his doctorate in 1884 with Paul de Lagarde with the dissertation Prolegomena to a Coptic nominal class. 1893 appointed him to the Leipzig University as an associate professor. The existing since 1870 Chair of Egyptology had previously Georg Ebers ( 1837-1898 ) holds. Steinsdorff occurred in 1897 and in the handling of standing on a high scientific level Baedeker bands " Egypt," the follow- Ebers, and was the author until the last inter-war edition of 1928, which took into account the successes excavation by Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings. Since 1898, Stone Dorff was a member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences. In 1904, he was professor and one of the foremost teachers of the University of Leipzig his time. In the troubled times of 1918/19, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Arts. During this time, the strictly national-conservative Steinsdorff fell out with his Communist son, the author and translator Ulrich Steinsdorff. The highlight of the career was the Rector at the University in 1923 / 24th The substantiated by the archaeologist Gustav Seyffarth Egyptian collection got its essential characterization by Steinsdorff. He built the small teaching collection into a museum, the Egyptian Museum of the University of Leipzig, from. In his research trips to Egypt, he acquired objects the house and grave use, but also works of art smaller format. The finds from the excavation (eg the limestone head of Queen Nefertiti ) he spent with the permission of the then managed by French Antiquities to Leipzig. Of particular importance are stone Dorffs excavations at Giza, Qau el -Kebir and Aniba in 1903 until 1931. 's Egyptian Museum has many objects that have been discovered in these expeditions. He was deputy secretary of the philosophical- historical class of the Saxon Academy From mid-December 1926 to mid-December 1932.
Stone Dorffs actually to March 31, 1930 due retirement was first exposed again at the request of the University for two years, in 1931 by one year to 1933. Even after that, he taught for another year on, since the occupation of the chair represented as problematic. The actual preferred candidate Hermann Kees did not accept the call, including the chair was occupied in 1934 with stone Dorffs Wizard Wolf Walther. At this time, Jewish teachers were dismissed generally at German universities due to the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. Nevertheless Steinsdorff was allowed until 1937, the infrastructure, such as collection and library of the seminary, use. In addition, he retained his office and the support of its employees. Due to its high global reputation he enjoyed relative protection from persecution, so he assessed the risk of long term wrong. Since 1935, the situation deteriorated dramatically. A Trip to the Orientalists Congress to Rome was forbidden him, as due to the Reich Citizenship Law further teaching, which led to a dramatic deterioration of the curriculum at the university. Given the number of documents it out of the Egyptian antiquity and the Journal of Egyptian language and archeology, he had to accept Wolf as co-editor, 1937, he was ousted as editor. For a further blow was the forced exit from the Saxon Academy in December 1938, he had been a member for 40 years. With this he came - on the advice of his friend Ludwig Weick husband, the then reigning Secretary of the Philosophy and History class - an exclusion before. 1936 sold Steinsdorff most of his Egyptological private collection to the University and traveled to 1938 times the United States. Probably served these trips a planned relocation of the family to the United States. No later than the events of the " Kristallnacht " made this decision final. In a letter to the U.S. Egyptologist John Wilson, he characterized it as " darkest days at Leipzig, some weeks after the pogrom of November, 1938 ."
In March 1939, he emigrated with his family to the United States, was able to take unlike the majority of other Jewish refugees, all of its mobile ownership including antique furniture, his Bechstein grand piano, his library and about 100 Egyptian antiquities with to California. First, he was employed as a Research Associate at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, after which he lived until his death in North Hollywood, where he met again with his son. In 1944 he became an American citizen. 1946 Steinsdorff was resumed as a corresponding member of the Saxon Academy. Is known is his list of German Egyptologists, which he listed in a letter to Wilson and they thereby depending on their proximity to the Nazi system as a "loaded" or " unloaded " classified. In 2008, the Leipzig Egyptological Institute was named after Steinsdorff.
In the years 1992-2011, the University of Leipzig, the American heirs stone dorff and the Jewish Claims Conference (JCC ) to the ownership of land sold in 1937 to the University from the collection of archaeologists. Quarreled Following a decision of the Administrative Court of Berlin on May 26, 2011, the Antiquities of the JCC should have been left. The JCC abandoned in June 2011 on the restitution claim, after the public has been made by an article of the Egyptologist Jan Assmann in the FAZ on the process closely. The collection is now on permanent display in the new 2010 -based Egyptian Museum Leipzig
Georg Stein Dorff was with Elise Oppenheimer, a sister of Franz Oppenheimer, married.
Writings (selection )
- Prolegomena to a Coptic nominal class. 1884
- Coptic Grammar with Chrestomathy, vocabulary and literature ( = Porta linguarum Orientalium. Vol. 14, ZDB - ID 1161698-2 ). Reuther & Reichard et al, Berlin 1894.