Fritz Hommel (31 July 1854 – 17 April 1936) was a German Orientalist.

Biography

Hommel was born on 31 July 1854 in

Ansbach Ansbach ( , ; ) is a city in the Germany, German state of Bavaria. It is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk, administrative region of Mittelfranken, Middle Franconia. Ansbach is southwest of Nuremberg and north of Munich, on the river Fränk ...

. He studied in

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

and was habilitated in 1877 in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

, where in 1885, he became an extraordinary professor of

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya language, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew language, Hebrew, Maltese language, Maltese, Modern South Arabian language ...

. He became a full professor in 1892, and after his retirement in 1925, continued to give lectures at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

. He was the doctoral supervisor of Islamic philosopher and poet

Muhammad Iqbal Muhammad Iqbal (9 November 187721 April 1938) was a South Asian Islamic philosopher, poet and politician. Quote: "In Persian, ... he published six volumes of mainly long poems between 1915 and 1936, ... more or less complete works on philoso ...

, who wrote the thesis ''The Development of Metaphysics in Persia'' under his supervision. He was intrigued by linguistical problems, and also interested in the history of the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

and its connection with culture and intellectual life. He excelled in studies of

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

literature, ancient

Arabic poetry Arabic poetry ( ''ash-shi‘r al-‘arabīyy'') is one of the earliest forms of Arabic literature. Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry contains the bulk of the oldest poetic material in Arabic, but Old Arabic inscriptions reveal the art of poetry existe ...

, old Turkic inscriptions and Egyptian

pyramid texts The Pyramid Texts are the oldest ancient Egyptian funerary texts, dating to the late Old Kingdom. They are the earliest known corpus of ancient Egyptian religious texts. Written in Old Egyptian, the pyramid texts were carved onto the subterranea ...

. He died on 17 April 1936 aged 81 in

Works

Among his better written efforts were a history of

Babylonia Babylonia (; , ) was an Ancient history, ancient Akkadian language, Akkadian-speaking state and cultural area based in the city of Babylon in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq and parts of Kuwait, Syria and Iran). It emerged as a ...

and

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

, ''Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens'' (1885) and a highly regarded work on the geography and history of the ancient Near East, titled: ''Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des Alten Orients'' (1904). Other significant writings by Hommel include: *''Die äthiopische Übersetzung des Physiologus'' (1877) – Ethiopian translation of the Physiologus *''Die Namen der Säugetiere bei den südsemitischen Völkern'' (1879). *''Zwei Jagdinschriften Asurbanipals'' (1879). *''Die semitischen Völker und Sprachen''. Bd. 1 (1883) – Semitic peoples and languages. *''Die älteste arabische Baarlam-Version'' (1887) – The oldest Arabic version of Barlaam. *''Abriß der Geschichte des alten Orients'' (1887) – Outline on the history of the ancient Orient. *''Der babylonische Ursprung der ägyptischen Kultur'' (1892) – The Babylonian origin of Egyptian culture. *''Aufsätze und Abhandlungen arabistisch-Semitologischen Inhalts'' Bd. I-III (1892–1901) – Essays and treatises of Arabic- Semitological content. *''Südarabische Chrestomathie'' (1893) – South Arabian anthology. *''Sumerische Lesestücke'' (1894) –

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

ian readings. *''Geschichte des alten Morgenlandes'' (1904). *''Die altisraelische Überlieferung in inschriftlicher Beleuchtung'' (1896). *''Der Gestirndienst der alten Araber und die altisraelische Überlieferung'' (1900). *''Vier neue arabische Landschaftsnamen im Alten Testament'' (1901) – Four new Arab landscape names in the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

. *''Zwei hundert sumero-türkische Wortvergleichungen'' (1915) – 200 Sumerian-Turkish word comparisons.

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Biography

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