Julius Oppert
Jules Oppert Julius Oppert ( born July 9, 1825 Hamburg, † August 19, 1905 in Paris) was a Franco-German orientalist.
Life
Jules Oppert, who came from a Jewish family in Hamburg, was trained at the Johanneum in Hamburg. In 1844 he began studying at the University of Heidelberg and then moved to the University of Bonn to study the Oriental, which he continued in Berlin and Kiel. In Kiel he received his PhD in 1847 on " De Jure Indorum Criminali ". Still in 1847 he left Germany and went to France. From scholars such as Jean Antoine Letronne, Burnouf, De Saulcy, and Longperier he was welcomed with open arms, because his work " sound system of Old Persian " (1847 ) as one of the most important works was the understanding of the Old Persian language. In 1848, he was a secondary school teacher in Laval, where he taught German. In 1850 he was appointed to Reims.
In 1851 he participated as Assyriologist in an expedition to Mesopotamia and Media, which was led by Fulgence Fresnel and was accompanied by Félix Thomas as an architect. He identified here finally the ruins of Babylon as Babylon. In 1854 they returned without Fresnel, who remained on the spot and died in 1855 in Baghdad. In the following years he published his findings in two volumes " Expédition Scientifique en Mésopotamie ". In 1854 he received French citizenship for his services to the French science. In 1855 he was sent to England to examine the collection of the British Museum. In 1856 he returned to France, where he was the cross of the Legion of Honor was awarded ( 1885, he became an officer of the Legion of Honor ). In 1857 he became a professor of Sanskrit and comparative linguistics. 1859/1864 was published his last major and most important work at the same time the subject of an Indo-Iranian language: " Grammaire Sanscrite " (2 volumes). Meanwhile, Oppert had acquired such an internationally reputation that he was appointed in 1857 when William Henry Fox Talbot and Edward Hincks as reviewers of the Royal Asiatic Society for the deciphering of Old Persian cuneiform script by Henry Rawlinson.
In the following years, Oppert began to deal primarily with the Assyriology. In 1869 he was a lecturer in Assyriology at the Collège de France, 1874 finally Professor of Assyrian Philology and Archaeology. During his journey to Mesopotamia, he discovered written records, none of the other languages could be assigned to. First, he called them " Casdo - Scythian ", and later he gave the name of the language used today Sumerian basis of the instrument used the Akkadian kings, king of Sumer and Akkad. First, however, be Oppert theory could not prevail. Only after further discoveries in Nineveh ( bilingual texts) and in Girsu was proven almost 20 years later, the existence of this language and thus the existence of the people of the Sumerians. In the following years he worked with inscriptions of Assyrian astronomy and astrology, Babylonian contract texts. As an author of scientific works he was very productive.
Since the second half of the 70s and in the 80s Oppert mainly dealt with biblical studies. He conducted research about the Book of Esther, the Book of Judith and Salomon. It also examined the language of the Medes. On March 18, 1881 he became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres ( Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, he replaced the ), 1890 Vice- President of the Academy, and in 1891 President. With the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, he was associated as a corresponding member from 1900.
Even at an advanced age Oppert remained productive. By 1902, he published no fewer than 427 titles. The majority of these were articles in French, partly German and English journals ( with Ledrain he founded the magazine "Revue d' Assyriology ," which he also published in the Carl Bezold in 1886 founded "Journal of Assyriology " he was for many years co-editor ).
Throughout his life as a Jew also Oppert was interested in Jewish history. He was an industrious contributor to the " Revue des Etudes Juives ", since 1876 a member of the Central Committee of the Alliance Israelite Universelle ( temporarily, he was the Vice President) and member of the " Consistoire central des israélites français ".