Josef Markwart (originally spelled Josef Marquart: December 9, 1864 in

Reichenbach am Heuberg Reichenbach am Heuberg Reichenbach is a municipality in the district of Tuttlingen in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. Geography Reichenbach lies on the Heuberg Plateau, a high plateau in the south of the Swabian Jura. The Lower Bära river f ...

– February 4, 1930 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

) was a German

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

and orientalist. He specialized in Turkish and Iranian Studies and the

history of the Middle East The Middle East, interchangeable with the Near East, is home to one of the Cradles of Civilization and has seen many of the world's oldest cultures and civilizations. The region's history started from the earliest human settlements and continues ...

. The ''

Encyclopædia Iranica ''Encyclopædia Iranica'' is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times. Scope The ''Encyc ...

'' wrote that "His books are full of profound and nearly inexhaustible erudition, revealing that their author was a learned historian, philologist, geographer, and ethnologist." The encyclopedia cited his 1901 book ''Ērānšahr'' as "still an authoritative work and probably his most important."

Biography

He attended Tübingen University in Germany, where he studied Catholic theology, and then later switched his studies to classical

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

and history. In 1889 he worked as an assistant to Eugen Prym, an orientalist author. His doctoral

thesis A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...

''Assyriaka des Ktesias'' was accepted and he graduated in 1892. In 1897 he began as a lecturer in

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 ...

. In 1900 he moved to

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 wi ...

, The Netherlands and became a

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

at the

Museum Volkenkunde The National Museum of Ethnology (Museum Volkenkunde), is an ethnographic museum in the Netherlands located in the university city of Leiden. As of 2014, the museum, along with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, and the Africa Museum in Berg en Dal, ...

(Ethnographical Museum). In 1902 he was appointed to the position of assistant professor for languages of the Christian Orient at Leiden University. In 1912 he moved to

and became a full Professor of

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

ian and

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ' ...

n studies at

Berlin University Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...

. He taught in Berlin for the remainder of his life, even giving a noon lecture on the day of his death in 1930. In 1922 he changed his last name from "Marquart" to "Markwart". The ''Encyclopædia Iranica'' stated that this paralleled "his tendency to make use of an idiosyncratic

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

in his writings." His most famous pupil was the Italian Orientalist Giuseppe Messina.

Works

* ''Ērānšahr nach der Geographie des Ps. Moses Xoranacʽi'' (1901) * ''Osteuropäische und ostasiatische Streifzüge'' (1903, reprinted 1961) * ''Südarmenien und die Tigrisquellen'' (1930) * ''A catalogue of the provincial capitals of Ērānshahr'' (published posthumously, 1931)

References

German orientalists 1864 births 1930 deaths Iranologists Armenian studies scholars {{Germany-academic-bio-stub