Eckhard Unger (

Landsberg an der Warthe Landsberg may refer to: * Landsberg (surname) * Margraviate of Landsberg, a march of the Holy Roman Empire * Palatinate-Landsberg, a state of the Holy Roman Empire Places * Landsberg (district), Bavaria, Germany * Landsberg, Saxony-Anhalt, G ...

, 11 April 1884 – 24 July 1966) was a German

assyriologist Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , ''-logia'') is the archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic study of Assyria and the rest of ancient Mesopotamia (a region that encompassed what is now modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeas ...

. Unger who was the curator of the Istanbul museum described the remains of

Balawat Gates The Balawat Gates are three sets of decorated bronze bands that had adorned the main doors of several buildings at Balawat (ancient Imgur-Enlil), dating to the reigns of Ashurnasirpal II (r. 883–859 BC) and Shalmaneser III (r. 859–824 BC). Thei ...

that are still in the Istanbul Museum. Unger was fully aware that the major parts of the gates were in London and Paris as he had visited both locations and discussed them with the respective curators.Zum Bronzetor von Balawat, Beiträge zur Erklärung und Deutung der assyrischen Inschriften und Reliefs Salmanassars III
Eckhard Unger, retrieved 4 September 2014 Nippur_cubit

In 1916, as curator of the Archeological Museum of Istanbul, he identified and described a copper-alloy object in the museum collection as an

ell An ell (from Proto-Germanic *''alinō'', cognate with Latin ''ulna'') is a northwestern European unit of measurement, originally understood as a cubit (the combined length of the forearm and extended hand). The word literally means "arm", an ...

or measuring rod from

Nippur Nippur ( Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory': Vol. 1, Part 1. Accessed 15 Dec 2010. Akkadian: ''Nibbur'') was an ancient Sumerian city. It wa ...

. Dating to the first half of the third millennium BC or even earlier, possibly the oldest known measuring device, it supposedly defines the

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of ...

ian cubit at about 518.6 millimetres. During World War I he made a first detailed research in Basilica cistern (yerebatan Sarnıcı) at İstanbul.

Published works

The many published works of Eckhard Unger include among others:
''Zum Bronzetor von Balawat. Beiträge zur Erklärung und Deutung der assyrischen Inschriften und Reliefs Salmanassars III''
(thesis) Leipzig: Eduard Pfeiffer 1913 * ''Zwei babylonische Antiken aus Nippur'' .l.1916. (Publikationen der Kaiserlich Osmanischen Museen) * ''Katalog der babylonischen und assyrischen Sammlung Kaiserlich osmanische Museen'' Istanbul: Ihsan 1918 * ''Die Wiederherstellung des Bronzetores von Balawat'' eipzig inrichs 1920 * ''Welt und Mensch im alten Orient'' Berlin: Witting .d.* ''Hettitische und aramäische kunst'' erlin 923* ''Sumerische und akkadische Kunst'' Breslau: Hirt 1926 * ''Assyrische und Babylonische Kunst'' Breslau: Hirt 1927 * ''Das Stadtbild von Assur'' Leipzig: Hinrichs 1929 (Der alte Orient, 27:3) * ''Babylon. Die heilige Stadt nach der Beschreibung der Babylonier'' 1931 (2nd ed. Berlin: De Gruyter 1970)

References

German archaeologists 1884 births 1966 deaths 20th-century archaeologists {{Germany-archaeologist-stub