Robert Johann Koldewey

Johannes Gustav Eduard Robert Koldewey (born the September 10th 1855 with Blankenburg-amndts-Harz, (Brunswick, Saxony, Germany), - deceased the February 4th 1925 with Berlin) was a Architecte and one of the German archeologists most known. He is considered, with Wilhelm Dörpfeld, like one of the founders of modern German archaeological research.

Aspects of its life and its work

After studies of Architecture, Archeology and History of art in various universities with Berlin, Munich and Vienna, during which it also familiarized with the old Greek , it starts to acquire a first archaeological experiment while taking part in small excavations. In 1882, following a meeting with the consular agent for the United States in the Dardanelles, Bostonian the Francis H. Bacon, and an adviser for the excavations of the discoverer of Troy, Heinrich Schliemann, Koldewey is engaged to take part in the excavations of the ancient Assus ( Assos ) in Western Turkey. These excavations of 1882-83 teach him the archaeological method and give him the idea to be interested in the architectural diagrams of the ancient ruins.

The discoverer of Babylon

But, the major work of Koldewey, that which will bring an immense notoriety to him, will come later, when it leads, on behalf of the imperial Musée from Berlin and of the the Deutsche-East Gesellschaft (DOG) the excavations from Babylon, in current the Iraq, between 1899 and 1917. It is the March 26th 1899, which he discovers the walls of the antique town of Mésopotamie. Thereafter, he will discover still with the passing of years, until the introduction of British protectorate on the Iraq during the First World War definitively does not come to stop its research: the processional, long 250 meters and broad Way from 20 to 24 meters, the Porte of Ishtar, the palate of Nabuchodonosor, famous the Jardins suspended of Sémiramis (one of the seven wonders of the world), and the Ziggourat, named Etemenanki (“the house-base of the sky and the ground”), dedicated to the god Mardouk, whose memory crossed time thanks to the biblical account ( Genèse 11 ), since the Bible makes of it mythical the Tower of Babel, which was supposed “touch sky”.

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