Max Freiherr von Oppenheim (July 15, 1860, Köln - November 17, 1946, Landshut) was a German ancient historian, and archaeologist, "the last of the great amateur archaeological explorers of the Near East.".[1]
He was a son of Albert Freiherr von Oppenheim. Abandoning his career in diplomacy, he financed his own excavations at Tell Halaf in 1911-13 and 1929. During World War I, Oppenheim led the Intelligence Bureau for the East and was closely associated with German plans to initiate and support a rebellion in India and in Egypt. From his works in archaeology, he personally owned a large portion of the finds, as was then the custom, and he hoped that the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, would acquire the material which included some of the most important Neo-Hittite sculptural reliefs. Disappointed in his negotiations, he opened his own museum in an abandoned factory in Berlin in 1930.; consequently, when measures were taken to protect the national collections during World War II, his Halafian material was not included: it was obliterated in a bombing raid in November 1943. Some fragments preserved in East German museum basements were reassembled after the reunification of Germany.
Contents |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Wikis
Map
Search
