Full Name: Duhn, Friedrich von
Other Names:
- Friedrich Karl von Duhn
Gender: male
Date Born: 1851
Date Died: 1930
Place Born: Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Place Died: Heidelberg, Saxony, Germany
Home Country/ies: Germany
Subject Area(s): archaeology
Overview
Professor of Archaeology at University of Heidelberg, 1880-1920. Duhn was the son of an eminent Lübeck judge. His namesake was his godfather, another famous jurist, Friedrich Karl von Savigny (1779-1861). Duhn was encouraged to study classics by his father, who had heard the lectures of Otfried Müller. The younger Duhn studied at Bonn under Franz Bücheler (1837-1908), Reinhard Kekulé von Stradonitz, and Hermann Usener (1834-1905). After his studies, Duhn traveled widely through the principal lands of classical archaeology, Italy, Sicily and Greece. In 1879 he published “über einige Basreliefs,” a brief paper which proved to be essential for assembling the Ara Pacis Augustae in Rome. It secured his reputation. After teaching only one semester at Göttingen, Duhn was called to Heidelberg where he was appointed professor of archaeology in 1880. In 1906 his Pompeji: eine hellenistische Stadt appeared. Duhn assumed the publication of Roman sculptural portraiture Friedrich Matz (1843-1874) after Matz’s death. In 1920 he retired emeritus from Heidelberg. The first volume of his Italische Gräberkunde appeared in 1924 and volume two only after his death. Heidelberg students he influenced included Gerhart Rodenwaldt and those whose dissertations he supervised included Rudolf Pagenstecher, Karl Schuchhardt, Bernhard Schweitzer, Hermann Winnefeld, Otto Weinreich (1886-1972) and Robert Zahn.
Selected Bibliography
[dissertation:] De Menelai itinere Aegyptio, Odysseae carminis IV episodio quaestiones criticae. Ph.D. Bonn, 1864, published, same title, Bonn: Formis C. Georgi, 1864; Ein Rückblick auf die Gräber-Forschung. [Lecture honoring the second founding of the Universität, Karl Friedrich, Grossherzog von Baden.] Heidelberg: J. Hörning, 1911; and Jacobi, Louis. Der griechische Tempel in Pompeii. 2 vols. Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1890; Italische Gräberkunde. 2 vols. Heidelberg: Carl Winter’s Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1924-1939; “Eine Bronzestatuette der Heidelberger archäologischen Sammlung.” Abhandlung. Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften. Sitzungsberichte. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse 2 (1911) no. 6. Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1911; Pompeji: eine hellenistische Stadt in Italien. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1906; [assumed publiscation after] Matz, Friedrich. Antike Bildwerke in Rom: mit Ausschluss der grösseren Sammlungen. 3 vols. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1881-1882; “über einige Basreliefs und ein römisches Bauwerk der ersten Kaiserzeit.” Instituto Archaeologico centum semestria feliciter peracta, gratulantur juvenes capitolini qui per centesimum instituti semestre in Monte Tarpejo constiterunt. Rome: Typis Salviuccianis, 1879.
Sources
Archäologenbildnisse: Porträts und Kurzbiographien von Klassichen Archäologen deutscher Sprache. Reinhard Lullies, ed. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1988: 100-101;Calder, William. “Duhn, Friedrich Carl von (1851-1930).” Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 1, pp. 375-76.
Archives
- Nachlass Duhn, Friedrich Carl von, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. https://archives.dainst.org/index.php/nachlass-duhn-friedrich-carl-von, DE-2322.
Contributors: Emily Crockett and Lee Sorensen