H I S T O R I K
Statens museer för världskultur
20 MEDELHAVSMUSEET HANS VON DER OSTENS SAMLING
Hans Henning Erimar von der Osten (1899-1960), tysk arkeolog med inriktning på Främre Orienten, var under åren 1951 till 1960 verksam vid Uppsala Universitet. Före sin bortgång hade han arbetat med en samling sigill som skänkts till Medelhavsmuseet av kung Gustaf VI Adolf. Von der Ostens artikel publicerades 1961 i det första numret av Medelhavsmuseets Bulletin.
Von der Ostens liv och verksamhet skildras i korthet i bifogade artikel av professor Carl Nylander för Encyclopaedia of Near Eastern Archaeology.
Samlingen i Medelhavsmuseets arkiv överlämnades till museet av fru Hete von der Osten år 1973 (jfr dnr 222/1973) och består dels av korrespondens från 1920-talet, då von der Osten var verksam i USA, dels av manuskript, anteckningar och teckningar.
Stockholm i oktober 1998
Inga-Britt Rosén Epel
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von der Osten, Hans Henning Erimar
31.10.1899-30.6.1960
German archaeologist and orientalist
1923 forced by post-World War I politics to leave Germany and archaeological studies in Berlin. 1924-25 Assistant, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 1926-27 director Hittite Survey, Chicago Oriental Institute. 1927-34 director Oriental Institute Anatolian Expedition to Alishar Hüyük and Kerkenesdag (1928), Gavurkale (1930), Terzili Hamam (1932). 1936-39 Chair of Archaeology, Ankara University. Work at Ahlatlibel 1937, Van 1938 and Roman baths, Ankara 1938-39. 1940-50 in Turkish prison on unsubstantiated accusations of spying.
Rehabilitated 1950. 1951-60 work at Uppsala University, Sweden. 1953 excavation Tell es-Salihiyeh, Syria. 1959 Director German-Swedish excavation Takht-i-Suleiman, Iran. 1960 Director German Archaeological Institute, Teheran. Died same year in Uppsala.
Von der Osten's scholarly contribution, some 60 publications and manuscripts, is dominated by field work, by Anatolian archaeology and historical topography, and ancient Near Eastern glyptics.
The main objective of his extensive topographical explorations and surveys in central Anatolia (putting some 300 sites on the archaeological map) was to find remains of the newly discovered Hittites (OIC 2, 6, 8, OIP 5). This led to his pioneering carefully dug and meticulously published excavation at Alishar Hüyük (1927-32), partly with Erich F. Schmidt (OIP 6, 7, 19, 20, 28-30), which produced the first important, albeit controversial, stratigraphy on the Anatolian plateau, with evidence of almost every period except the Hittite. His numerous articles on Anatolian archaeology, regrettably, never culminated in the completion of his long study of the historical geography of Anatolia, the unfinished manuscript on "Siedlungsgeschichte Kleinasiens".
He produced learned volumes on the seal collections of E.T. Newell (OIP 22, 1934), A. Baldwin Brett (OIP 37, 1936) and, especially, H.S. von Aulock (Studia Ethnographica Upsaliensia XIII 1957).
A late interest in the archaeology of Iran resulted in the elegant synthesis Die Welt der Perser (1956) and the excavation at the Sasanian sight Takht-i Suleiman, Azerbaidjan (1959-).
A forceful, far-sighted master in the landscape, at the excavation and in the graduate seminar H.H. von der Osten was caught in the forces of world politics and robbed of his most creative years. Yet much of his work endures.
Bibliography: Much material on H.H. von der Osten in the archives of the University Library, Uppsala, Sweden.