Adam Falkenstein (17 September 1906 – 15 October 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, southea ...

. He was born in

Planegg Planegg is a municipality in the district of Munich, in Bavaria, Germany. It is located on the river Würm, 13 km west of Munich (centre). Economy Koch Media has its head office in Planegg. It also hosts many biotech-companies, like ADVA ...

, near

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

and died in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

Life

Falkenstein studied Assyriology in

and

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

. He was involved primarily with

cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...

, particularly discoveries in

Uruk Uruk, also known as Warka or Warkah, was an ancient city of Sumer (and later of Babylonia) situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates River on the dried-up ancient channel of the Euphrates east of modern Samawah, Al-Muthannā, Iraq.Harm ...

, and with the Sumerians and their

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

. From 1930 onward, Falkenstein taught as a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

of Assyriology at the

Göttingen University Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The o ...

. In 1940 he accepted a teaching assignment at

Heidelberg University } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, B ...

as a professor of

semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...

. He joined the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...

in 1939. In 1941 he flew to

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

with Fritz Grobba when

Haj Amin al-Husseini Mohammed Amin al-Husseini ( ar, محمد أمين الحسيني 1897 – 4 July 1974) was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in Mandatory Palestine. Al-Husseini was the scion of the al-Husayni family of Jerusalemite Arab notable ...

and

Rashid Ali al-Gaylani Rashid Ali al-Gaylaniin Arab standard pronunciation Rashid Aali al-Kaylani; also transliterated as Sayyid Rashid Aali al-Gillani, Sayyid Rashid Ali al-Gailani or sometimes Sayyad Rashid Ali el Keilany (" Sayyad" serves to address higher standing ...

organized a brief, pro-German coup supported by weapons shipments from the German Reich. Afterward he was employed by the German foreign service in

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

. Nothing is known about his

de-nazification Denazification (german: link=yes, Entnazifizierung) was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of the Nazi ideology following the Second World War. It was carried out by remov ...

. From 1939 to 1944 he was editor of the professional journal ''"Orientalische Literaturzeitung"''; from 1950 until his death in 1966 he edited the ''"Zeitschrift für Assyriologie"''. In the early 1950s he resumed teaching at

Literary works

* ''Literarische Keilschrifttexte aus Uruk'' (1931) * ''Haupttypen der sumerischen Beschwörungen'' (1931) * ''Die archaische Keilschrifttexte aus Uruk'' (1936) * ''Topographie von Uruk'' (1941) * ''Grammatik der Sprache Gudeas von Lagaš'' (1949-1950) * ''Sumerische und Akkadische Hymnen und Gebete'' (1953, with Wolfram von Soden)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Falkenstein, Adam 1906 births 1966 deaths People from the Kingdom of Bavaria Linguists from Germany German Assyriologists German male non-fiction writers 20th-century linguists