Julius (Jules) Oppert (9 July 1825 – 21 August 1905) was a
French-
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
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**Ge ...
Assyriologist
Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , ''-logia'') is the archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic study of Assyria and the rest of ancient Mesopotamia (a region that encompassed what is now modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southea ...
, born in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
of
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
parents.
Career
After studying at
Heidelberg
Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...
,
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...
and
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 ...
, he graduated at
Kiel
Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021).
Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland ...
in 1847, and the next year went to France, where he was a teacher of German at Laval and at Reims. His leisure was given to
Oriental studies, in which he had made great progress in Germany.
In 1851 he joined the French archaeological mission to
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
and
Media
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under
Fulgence Fresnel.
[Larsen, M.T., ''The Conquest of Assyria: Excavations in an Antique Land,'' Routledge, 2014, pp 307-08 and p. 315] On his return in 1854, he was naturalized as a French citizen in recognition of his services. He occupied himself with analyzing the results of the expedition, with special attention to the
cuneiform
Cuneiform is a logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sh ...
inscriptions he had collected. His account of the Fresnel mission and the results of his consequent study were published as ''Expédition Scientifique en Mésopotamie'' (1859–1863), with the second volume entitled ''Déchiffrement des inscriptions cunéiformes''. The work was especially notable as most of the mission's excavations were lost in the
Al Qurnah disaster.
In 1855 he published ''Écriture Anarienne'', advancing the theory that the language spoken originally in Assyria was
Turanian {{Short description, List of groups of people
Turanian is a term that has been used in reference to diverse groups of people. It has had currency in Turanism, Pan-Turkism, and historic Turkish nationalism.
Many of the uses of the word are obsolete. ...
(related to
Turkish and
Mongolian), rather than
Aryan or
Semitic in origin, and that its speakers had invented the cuneiform writing system. Although the classification of the "Casdo-Scythian" inscriptions as Turanian would later be rejected by scholars, research would confirm Oppert in his identification of the distinctness of the
Sumerian language (as he renamed it in 1869) and the origin of its script.
In 1856 he published ''Chronologie des Assyriens et des Babyloniens''.
In 1857 he was appointed professor of
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
and comparative
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 ...
in the school of languages connected with the
National Library of France
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, and in this capacity he produced his ''Grammaire Sanscrite'' (1859). But his attention was chiefly given to
Assyrian
Assyrian may refer to:
* Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia.
* Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire.
** Early Assyrian Period
** Old Assyrian Period
** Middle Assyrian Empire
** Neo-Assyrian Empire
* Assyrian ...
and cognate subjects.
In 1865 he published a history of Assyria and
Chaldaea (''Histoire des Empires de Chaldée et d'Assyrie'') in the context of new archaeological findings. His Assyrian grammar, ''Éléments de la grammaire assyrienne'', was published in 1868. In 1869 Oppert was appointed professor of Assyrian philology and archaeology at the College de France.
In 1876 Oppert began to focus on the antiquities of
ancient Media and its language, writing ''Le Peuple et la langue des Médes'' (1879).
In 1881 he was admitted to the
Academy of Inscriptions
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...
and in 1890, he was elected to its presidency.
He died in Paris on 21 August 1905.
Bibliography
Oppert was a voluminous writer upon Assyrian mythology and
jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...
, and other subjects connected with the ancient civilizations of the East. Among his other works may be mentioned:
*''L'Immortalité de l'âme chez les Chaldéens'', (1875)
*''Salomon et ses successeurs'' (1877)
*''Doctrines juridiques de l'Assyrie et de la Chaldée'' (1877, with
Joachim Menant
Joachim Menant (16 April 1820 – 30 August 1899) was a French magistrate and orientalist.
He was born in Cherbourg. He studied law and became vice-president of the tribunal civil of Rouen in 1878, and a member of the court of appeal three ye ...
).
A list of his articles may be found in Muss-Arnolt, "The Works of Jules Oppert", in Delitzsch and Haupt, ''Beiträge zur Assyriologie'', ii.523-556, Leipzig, 1894.
[Isidore Singer & Louis Gray]
Jules."
''Jewish Encyclopedia'', 1906.
See also
*
Felix Thomas
*
Fugence Fresnel
*
Orientalism in early modern France
*
Orientalism
*
Oriental studies
References
External links
"Jules Julius Oppert," Jewish Virtual Library, from ''Encyclopaedia Judaica.''
*
*
*''Jewish Encyclopedia''
"Oppert, Jules"by Isidore Singer & Louis Gray (1906).
Julius Opperton
data.bnf.fr
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oppert, Julius
1825 births
1905 deaths
Heidelberg University alumni
University of Kiel alumni
19th-century archaeologists
Archaeologists from Hamburg
Jewish archaeologists
French Assyriologists
German Assyriologists
19th-century German Jews
Jewish orientalists
Collège de France faculty
Members of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences
Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences
Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
French emigrants to Germany
19th-century German writers
19th-century German male writers
German emigrants to France
Officiers of the Légion d'honneur