Elisabeth Rohde (23 October 1915,

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

– 2 July 2013, Berlin) was a German

classical archaeologist Classical archaeology is the archaeological investigation of the Mediterranean civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Nineteenth-century archaeologists such as Heinrich Schliemann were drawn to study the societies they had read about i ...

. Elisabeth Rohde studied classical archaeology,

ancient history Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...

and

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

at Berlin University, where she graduated in 1945, with a dissertation entitled ''Theseusdarstellungen in der griechischen Vasenmalerei von den Anfängen bis zum vierten Jahrhundert'' (Depictions of

Theseus Theseus (, ; grc-gre, Θησεύς ) was the mythical king and founder-hero of Athens. The myths surrounding Theseus his journeys, exploits, and friends have provided material for fiction throughout the ages. Theseus is sometimes describe ...

in Greek vase painting from the Beginning until the Fourth Century). From the beginning of her academic career, her work was connected with the

Antikensammlung Berlin The Antikensammlung Berlin (Berlin antiquities collection) is one of the most important collections of classical art in the world, now held in the Altes Museum and Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Germany. It contains thousands of ancient archaeological ...

. Rohde initially worked with Carl Blümel and after 1945 worked as a labourer packing up the artworks of the

Pergamonmuseum The Pergamon Museum (; ) is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. It was built from 1910 to 1930 by order of German Emperor Wilhelm II according to plans by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann in Stripped Clas ...

for transport to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. In 1955 she rearranged the Hellenistic architecture gallery, filling the gap left by statuary taken to Moscow by laying out the Hephaistion mosaic in their place. Two years later, she took part in the re-erection of the

Pergamon altar The Pergamon Altar () was a monumental construction built during the reign of the Ancient Greek King Eumenes II in the first half of the 2nd century BC on one of the terraces of the acropolis of Pergamon in Anatolia, Asia Minor. The structure wa ...

after the Soviet Union returned most of the museum's art to the

DDR DDR or ddr may refer to: *ddr, ISO 639-3 code for the Dhudhuroa language *DDr., title for a double doctorate in Germany *DDR, station code for Dadar railway station, Mumbai, India *' (German Democratic Republic), official name of the former Eas ...

. With Blümel, she rearranged the presentation of the altar in line with the latest scholarly consensus. After Blümel went into retirement in 1961, Rohde became the acting Director of the collection. She was inconvenienced by the construction of the

Berlin Wall The Berlin Wall (german: Berliner Mauer, ) was a guarded concrete barrier that encircled West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating it from East Berlin and East Germany (GDR). Construction of the Berlin Wall was commenced by the government ...

, since she lived in

Berlin-Charlottenburg Charlottenburg () is a Boroughs and localities of Berlin, locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a German town law, town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Kingdom ...

in the west part of the city. Since she knew that a similar career was not open to her in West Germany at that time, she remained at the Antikensammlung and commuted daily between West and East Berlin. In 1971, Rohde was finally appointed full Director. She never allowed herself to be controlled by the DDR politically; her research remained free of DDR-speak and she was even able to close the Antikensammlung to their indoctrination. Furthermore, she maintained contact with her colleagues in the western part of the city. At her retirement in 1982 she received a special permanent

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for the DDR. Her successor was

Max Kunze Max Kunze (born 26 October 1944 in Schotten) is a German classical archaeologist. Life Max Kunze studied Classical archaeology and classical philology at the Humboldt University of Berlin (HU), between 1964 and 1969. After this he was employed ...

. Rohde focused on the Pergamon altar, its historical and art historical significance, worked on the friezes and the Greek vases of the Berlin Antikensammlung and the Schlossmuseum Gotha. She edited three volumes of Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. She was an ordinary member of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut.

Selected works

* ''Pergamon. Burgberg und Altar.'' (Pergamon: Citadel and Altar). Henschel, Berlin 1961 * ''Griechische und römische Kunst in den Staatlichen Museum zu Berlin.'' (Greek and Roman Art in the Staatlich Museum of Berlin) Henschel, Berlin 1968 * ''Der Altar von Pergamon.'' (The Altar of Pergamon). Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1973

Bibliography

* Johannes Irmscher. ''Die Direktoren der Antikensammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin.'' In: ''Forschungen und Berichte'' 27 (1989), pp. 267–270, at p. 269. * Nikolaus Bernau. "Nachruf Elisabeth Rohde: Die Direktorin pendelte täglich in den Osten." (Obituary) ''

Berliner Zeitung The ''Berliner Zeitung'' (, ''Berlin Newspaper'') is a daily newspaper based in Berlin, Germany. Founded in East Germany in 1945, it is the only East German paper to achieve national prominence since reunification. It is published by Berliner ...

'', 7 July 2013. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rohde, Elisabeth 1915 births 2013 deaths Classical archaeologists Archaeologists from Dresden Scholars of ancient Greek pottery People of the Antikensammlung Berlin Directors of museums in Germany Women museum directors Humboldt University of Berlin alumni German women archaeologists