Otto Benndorf

Otto Benndorf (* September 13 1838 in Greiz, like Reuss L.; † January 2, 1907 in Vienna ) was a German classical archaeologist and the founder of the Austrian Archaeological Institute.

Life

Otto Benndorf was born the son of a merchant in Greiz in a strict Protestant family. About his brother Friedrich August Paul Benndorf, who married Anna Maria of Saverne, he was associated with the Mainzer publishing family of Saverne. In this sense he was brought up and should be a pastor. He studied several semesters at the Theological Faculty of Erlangen before studying art history at the Rheinische Friedrich- Wilhelms University in Bonn turned to. Among his teachers were Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, Otto Jahn and Friedrich Ritschl. He earned a doctorate in the subjects archeology and art history and became a teacher at various secondary schools. Using a multi-year scholarship from 1864 to 1868, he made a crucial for his life journey through southern France, Italy and Greece in the Levant. With the results of this trip, he habilitated in Göttingen under Friedrich Wieseler. Here Benndorf married Sophie Wagner, who was born into a talented family; her brother was the economist Adolf Wagner. The marriage produced three children, Hans, Else and Nelly. Else married Wolfgang Reichel. Just one year later, 1869, he became the first extraordinary professor of classical archeology in Zurich. Mob attacks that were directed against a peace festival in 1871 the Germans in Zurich and for which the cantonal government offered no compensation, outraged him so much that he resigned his professorship and moved as an unpaid lecturer with the rank of associate professor in Munich.

Benndorf 1872 was appointed as associate professor in Prague, where he taught until 1877. Under the leadership of the then owner professorship in Vienna, Alexander Conze, he took in 1875 at the second Austrian expedition to Samothrace part. In 1877 he was appointed as the successor Conze to the Chair of the University of Vienna. As head of the Archaeological and Epigraphic seminar he organized several expeditions to Asia Minor, including 1881 and 1882, accompanied by, among others, by Felix von Luschan, George Niemann and Karl Graf Lanckoroński to Lycia for retrieval of Heroon of Gjölbaschi - Trysa. There he came across the bridge Limyra. In 1895 Benndorf initiated by Carl Humann, the first Austrian excavations in Ephesus, which began in 1896. Then he sought the establishment of an Austrian Archaeological Institute, which opened in 1898. Benndorf received the Directorate and resigned from his position as professor at the university down. He was also from 1897 to his death chairman of the Commission on the Balkans.

As head of the newly founded ÖAI Benndorf also strove for research courses in Austria. In 1905 he fell ill on his last journey in Asia Minor and died in 1907 at the effects of a stroke and was in an honorary dedicated grave in the cemetery Dornbacher (Group 14, Series 3, Number 29) buried in Vienna. In 1958 ( 22nd District ) was in Vienna Danube city named the Benndorfgasse after him in his birthplace, a street in the Reißberg district.

Importance

Benndorfs scientific research is characterized by a later hardly ever reached versatility, by linguistically sophisticated representation and the non- aesthetic vehicles, but built on deep knowledge of ancient history and literature work. As a professor and even more so as the head of the Archaeological Institute, he proved to be a tireless, prolific acting organizer: in the care of ancient monuments on Austrian soil, the design of the subsequent provincial museums, exploring the neighboring Greek areas, and especially in its four major archaeological expeditions, where the expedition to Ephesus was probably the most important scientific, which is applied for the first time, uncover an ancient city. In the successor Alexander Conze Benndorf devoted much time and energy into building of Classical Archaeology in Austria. He edited the Archaeological and Epigraphic releases from Austria ( 1877-1897 ) and got 1886-1891, the editor of the second and third series of his Viennese Serving sheets for exercises and seminars. 1890, the justification for the inscription publication series Tituli Asiae minoris, which still exists today.

In the 1870s and 1880s Benndorf could not last through his use occurs, the chances of the period of Austrian archeology, which allowed him to implement many projects. So he could at the Archaeological and Epigraphic Seminar University of Vienna in 1884 justify an archaeological collection with several hundred casts. To triumph came the discovery of Heroon of Trysa for which an extra salvage a road had to be built. The Museum of Fine Arts as well as the Ephesus Museum, thanks to the efforts Benndorfs a considerable part of their collections. In order to address these excavations all over he finally initiated the creation of the OEAI. He was also a member of the German Archaeological Institute. Among his most important pupils included Franz Studniczka and Robert Schneider.

Writings (selection )

• George Niemann: The Heroon of Gjölbaschi - Trysa. Holzhausen, Vienna 1889
• The metopes of Selinunte. Guttentag, Berlin, 1867.
• Alexander Conze and Alois Hauser: New archaeological investigations at Samothrace. 2 vols. Gerold, Vienna 1880.
• George Niemann: Travel in southwestern Asia Minor. Vienna 1884-1898; Reproduction Codex -Verl., Gundholzen 1975.