Hugo Winckler

Hugo Winckler ( born July 4, 1863 in Graefenhainichen, † April 19, 1913 in Berlin) was a German orientalist.

Winckler studied at the University of Berlin Eberhard Schrader, the founder of the German Assyriology, and was awarded his doctorate on June 24, 1886 with a thesis on the cuneiform texts of Sargon. As a professor of Oriental languages ​​at the University of Berlin, Winckler dealt with cuneiform inscriptions. In studies in the Egyptian royal archives at Tell El -Amarna, he came across two panels containing cuneiform texts of recently unknown Hittite cuneiform.

On his initiative, started in 1906, together with Theodor Makridi excavations in Bogazköy in the Anatolian highlands. The writing tablets found there permanently occupied, that it is the place to experience the capital of the Hittite empire, Hattusa, acted. The excavations were continued from 1907 to 1912.

In his essay Preliminary news on the excavations in Boghaz - Koei in the summer of 1907 Winckler presented the history of the Hittite Empire, where he was based on a series of treaties in the Akkadian language. He thus made a major contribution to the study of the history of the Middle East.

On Winckler also equating the " Hurricane " with the Biblical Hurrians goes back. Hugo Winckler also coined the term Panbabylonismus to describe the postulated by him far-reaching influence of the Assyrian thinking on the Israeli idea of ​​God, which he regarded as an echo of the astral cult. He played in the Babel - Bible controversy an important role, since its conception, the ancient spiritual culture and thus the whole of Western culture going back to ancient Near Eastern discoveries and accomplishments, far more radical than the more moderate views of Friedrich Delitzsch.

Writings (selection )

  • Report on the clay tablets of Tell- el -Amarna in the Royal Museum in Berlin and the Museum of Bulak. Proceedings of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, Berlin, 1888.
  • The cuneiform texts of Sargon. Publisher Eduard Pfeiffer, Leipzig 1889.
  • Studies on ancient Near Eastern history. Publisher Eduard Pfeiffer, Leipzig 1889.
  • Historical texts of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Hugo Winckler, Berlin, 1890. ( Cuneiform library vol 3, 2)
  • History of Babylonia and Assyria. Publisher Eduard Pfeiffer, Leipzig 1892. ( Peoples and states of the ancient Orient Vol 1)
  • The clay tablets of Tell- el -Amarna. Reuther & Reichard Berlin 1896. ( Cuneiform library vol 5) The Tell- el- Amarna letters. Lemcke & Buechner, New York, 1896.
  • The History of Babylonia and Assyria. translated v. James Alexander Craig, Scribner 's, New York, 1907. translation of the Old West Asia. in: Helmolt 's world history. Vol 3 Bibliographical Institute, Leipzig 1901
Hittites Name Authority File
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