Eduard Georg Seler was a prominent German anthropologist, ethnohistorian, linguist, epigrapher, academic and Americanist scholar, who made extensive contributions in these fields towards the study of pre-Columbian era

Pre-Columbian era

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...

 cultures in the Americas. He is most renowned for his foundational studies concerning the ethnography, documents and history of Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica is a region and culture area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and...

n cultures, for which he has been regarded as one of the most influential Mesoamericanist scholars active around the turn of the 20th century.

Being poor and of ailing health, he has been helped and supported along the years by his wife Cäcilie (Cecilia) Seler-Sachs (1855–1935), at the same time monetarily (she was the daughter of Dr Sachs, a wealthy MD), physically (during their long, hard, and insecure travels), and intellectually. Her photos of Aztec temples and pyramids are even nowadays useful to scientists, and after her husband's death she went on verifying his works, and publishing them. On the spot, the Selers were helped by Mexican scholar and historian Antonio Penafiel.

Dates

• Dec 5th, 1849 – Birth in Crossen an der Oder, Prussia
• 1863-1869 – Attendance at Joachimsthalsche Gymnasium, Berlin
• 1870-71 — Military service (during the Franco-Prussian War)
• 1871-75 – Studies at University of Berlin
• 1875-79 – Teaching science and mathematics
• 1887 – Doctoral degree from University of Leipzig
• 1904-22 – Directorship of American Division, Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin
• 1922 — Death

Writings by Eduard Seler

• in the original German :- Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur Amerikanischen Sprach- und Alterthumskunde. 5 vols. Berlin : A. Asher, 1902-1923.
• translated (by Charles P. Bowditch & Frank E. Comparato) into English :- Collected Works in Mesoamerican Linguistics and Archaeology. Culver City (CA) : Labyrinthos, 1990-1998.

External links

• Werke Eduard Selers at altamerikanistik.de
• biography of Eduard Seler
• Fundación Eduard Seler, non-profit association established 1992 in Mexico City, named after Seler and devoted to the archaeology, ethnohistory and indigenous concerns of the region studied by Seler

Over a hundred images of Uxmal in Seler's 1917 "Ruinen von Uxmal". http://academic.reed.edu/uxmal/galleries/thumbnails/drawings/Drawings-Seler.htm