Landsberger Archives in Leipzig and Jerusalem

Landsberger Archives in Leipzig and Jerusalem

Benno Landsberger (Friedek 21 April 1890 - Chicago 26 April 1968), from 1908 a student and from 1929-1935 professor at the university of Leipzig, decisively shaped the field of Ancient Near Eastern studies in the 20th c. This website intends to present archival documents pertaining to Landsberger from two universities, Leipzig and Jerusalem, in order to foster further research on one of the greatest masters of the discipline.

The Leipzig material has been kept for more than 80 years at the university of Leipzig and is now in the possession of the Altorientalisches Institut. It consists mainly of letters to and from Landsberger during the period of his professorship and the period of his early exile in Ankara, Turkey.

The Jerusalem material is part of Landsberger's estate, which he bequeathed to the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. For many years now his private library has formed part of the library of Assyriology at the Institute of Archaeology. In April 2012, while cataloguing material stored in the basement of the Institute of Archaeology, Nathan Wasserman found two boxes and identified them as containing archival documents of Landsberger - letters, manuscripts of public lectures, some photos, and many notes and notebooks of his early days as a student in Leipzig - hitherto totally unknown. The material was collected and arranged by Wasserman and parts of it were scanned for public reference (by Mijal Ribco). In June 2012 Michael P. Streck went over the documents and prepared a preliminary catalogue of the estate, which was subsequently presented on a website now replaced by this site.

(C) All rights of publication are reserved by the Altorientalisches Institut der Universität Leipzig and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Bibliography:

• Michael P. Streck: Altorientalistik, in: U. von Hehl/U. John/M. Rudersdorf (ed.), Geschichte der Universität Leipzig 1409-2009, Band 4: Fakultäten, Institute, Zentrale Einrichtungen (2009) 345-366. For a fuller digital version see here.


• L. Vacín, in collaboration with Jitka Sýkorová: The Unknown Benno Landsberger. A Biographical Sketch of an Assyriological Altmeister's Development, Exile, and Personal Life (= Leipziger Altorientalische Studien 10, 2018).

Documents in Leipzig

Documents in Jerusalem