Hermann von Rosenberg (April 7, 1817 – November 15, 1888) was a German naturalist born in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

. He published a few books and several articles concerning his work in the East Indies. In these he describes the

geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

and

ethnography Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

of the islands.

Biography

In late 1839 he enlisted in the Dutch ''Harderwijk'', and soon afterwards was stationed in the

Netherlands East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

as a military

cartographer Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an im ...

, tasked with making

topographical Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...

surveys. He spent 30 years of his life working in the East Indies. From 1840 until 1856, Rosenberg was a topographical draughtsman on

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

and its neighboring islands. Afterwards he was a civil servant, working as a cartographer and

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

in the

Moluccas The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located eas ...

and western

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

. He was a member of the

Etna expedition The Etna expedition (1858) was an early policy-oriented exploration of the then virtually unknown south and north coast of Dutch New Guinea, that can also be regarded as the second Dutch scientific expedition to the main island of New Guinea since 1 ...

. Rosenberg had a keen interest in

ornithology Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the "methodological study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them." Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and th ...

, and beginning in the 1860s, collected specimens in the Indies for study and classification by

Hermann Schlegel Hermann Schlegel (10 June 1804 – 17 January 1884) was a German ornithologist, herpetologist and ichthyologist. Early life and education Schlegel was born at Altenburg, the son of a brassfounder. His father collected butterflies, which stimula ...

at the natural history museum of

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...

. He returned to Europe in 1871, and died in

the Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

, Netherlands in 1888.

Legacy

Rosenberg is commemorated in the

scientific name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

of a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

monitor lizard Monitor lizards are lizards in the genus ''Varanus,'' the only extant genus in the family Varanidae. They are native to Africa, Asia, and Oceania, and one species is also found in the Americas as an invasive species. About 80 species are recogn ...

, ''Varanus rosenbergi''.Boelens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Rosenberg", p. 226).

Works

Rosenberg's best written effort was the "''Der Malayische Archipel. Land und Leute in Schilderungen, gesammelt während eines dreissigjährigen Aufenthaltes in den Kolonien''". Here he writes about the famous Javanese garden at Buitenzorg, and describes the artifacts and customs of the people of Sumatra, Sulawesi, Celebes, New Guinea and the Moluccas. The illustrations in the book were mostly made from wood-engravings, based on Rosenberg's illustrations made on site. Alfred Russel Wallace named Rosenberg in his book The Malay Archipelago as "Dutch naturalist", "my friend", "old friend", "a German named Rosenberg", and as a person who gave him support on behalf of the Dutch Colonial Government.

References

* ''This article is based on a translation of the article from the French and German Wikipedia.'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Rosenberg, Hermann von 1817 births 1888 deaths Explorers of New Guinea German cartographers German naturalists German ornithologists Scientists from Darmstadt People from the Grand Duchy of Hesse