Ernst Emil Herzfeld was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 archaeologist and Iranologist.

Life

Herzfeld was born in Celle

Celle

Celle is a town and capital of the district of Celle, in Lower Saxony, Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the River Aller, a tributary of the Weser and has a population of about 71,000...

, Province of Hanover

Province of Hanover

The Province of Hanover was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1868 to 1946.During the Austro-Prussian War, the Kingdom of Hanover had attempted to maintain a neutral position, along with some other member states of the German Confederation...

. He studied architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

 in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 and Berlin

Technical University of Berlin

The Technische Universität Berlin is a research university located in Berlin, Germany. Translating the name into English is discouraged by the university, however paraphrasing as Berlin Institute of Technology is recommended by the university if necessary .The TU Berlin was founded...

, while also taking classes in Assyriology

Assyriology

Assyriology is the archaeological, historical, and linguistic study of ancient Mesopotamia and the related cultures that used cuneiform writing. The field covers the Akkadian sister-cultures of Assyria and Babylonia, together with their cultural predecessor; Sumer...

, ancient history

Ancient history

Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...

 and art history

Art history

Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

.

1903-05 he was assistant to Walter Andrae

Walter Andrae

Walter Andrae was a German archaeologist and architect who was born near Leipzig.He initially studied architecture, and in 1898 participated in an archaeological dig at Babylon under the leadership of Robert Koldewey . From 1903 to 1914 he directed the excavation of the ancient Assyrian capital of...

 in the acclaimed excavations of Assur

Assur

Assur , was one of the capitals of ancient Assyria. The remains of the city are situated on the western bank of river Tigris, north of the confluence with the tributary Little Zab river, in modern day Iraq, more precisely in the Al-Shirqat District .Assur is also...

, and later traveled widely in Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

 and Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

 at the beginning of the twentieth century. He surveyed and documented many historical sites in Turkey, Syria, Persia (later Iran) and most importantly in Iraq (e.g. Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

, Ctesiphon

Ctesiphon

Ctesiphon, the imperial capital of the Parthian Arsacids and of the Persian Sassanids, was one of the great cities of ancient Mesopotamia.The ruins of the city are located on the east bank of the Tigris, across the river from the Hellenistic city of Seleucia...

). At Samarra

Samarra

Sāmarrā is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Salah ad-Din Governorate, north of Baghdad and, in 2003, had an estimated population of 348,700....

 he carried out the first excavations of an Islamic period site in 1911-13. After military service during World War I he was appointed full professor for "Landes- und Altertumskunde des Orients" in Berlin in 1920. This was the first professorship for Near/Middle Eastern archaeology in the world. 1923-25 he started explorations in Persia and described many of the countries´ most important ruins for the first time. In 1925 he moved to Tehran and stayed there most of the time until 1934. He was instrumental in creating a Persian law of antiquities and excavated in the Achaemenid capitals Pasargadae

Pasargadae

Pasargadae , the capital of Cyrus the Great and also his last resting place, was a city in ancient Persia, and is today an archaeological site and one of Iran's UNESCO World Heritage Sites.-History:...

 and Persepolis

Persepolis

Perspolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire . Persepolis is situated northeast of the modern city of Shiraz in the Fars Province of modern Iran. In contemporary Persian, the site is known as Takht-e Jamshid...

.

He left Iran at the end of 1934 for a year in London, but never returned. In 1935 he was forced, for racial reasons (he was of Jewish descent), to leave his position in Germany and became a faculty member of the Institute for Advanced Study

Institute for Advanced Study

The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...

 from 1936 to 1944. He died in Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 in 1948.

Archives

The bulk of the Ernst Herzfeld Papers are housed in the archives of the Freer Gallery of Art

Freer Gallery of Art

The Freer Gallery of Art joins the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery to form the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art. The Freer contains art from East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Islamic world, the ancient Near East, and ancient Egypt, as well as a significant collection of...

 and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery joins the Freer Gallery of Art to form the Smithsonian Institution's national museums of Asian art. The Sackler celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2012....

, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC. The material, some 30,000 documents include his field notebooks, photographs, drawings and object inventories from his excavations at Samarra, Persepolis, Pasargadae and elsewhere in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. The archives is open by appointment Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The archives is currently undertaking a monumental project to digitize all of Ernst Herzfeld's remaining squeezes. Over 400 of these delicate paper impressions of ancient monuments will be photographed from multiple angles to create online files that users can manipulate. The user will be able to adjust flash angle, contrast, magnification, and many other settings to make the squeezes readable. This project is planned to be completed in late 2010 and early 2011.

Literary works

• Iranische Felsreliefs, 1910
• Archäologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet, 4 Vols., 1911-1920 (together with Friedrich Sarre
• Paikuli, 2 Vols., 1924
• Die Ausgrabungen von Samarra, 5 Vols., 1923-1930
• Archaeological History of Iran, (Schweich Lectures for 1934)
• Altpersische Inschriften, 1938
• Iran in the ancient East, 1940
• Zoroaster and his world, 2 Vols., 1947

External links

• Finding Aids for the Herzfeld Archive in the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.
• Ernst Herzfeld Papers Collections Search Center, S.I.R.I.S., Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
• Ernst Herzfeld Papers, Series 7: Records of Samarra Expeditions, 1906-1945 Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC.
• Ernst Herzfeld-Gesellschaft Zur Erforschung der Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie (Ernst Herzfeld Society for Exploration of Islamic Art and Archaeology). http://www.ernst-herzfeld-gesellschaft.de/