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5 FRITZ RUDOLF KRAUS IN (1937-1949) 6

HOOFDARTIKEL The letters narrowly escaped being destroyed. Feeling that he had not much longer to live, Kraus had intended to have the letters, together with the family photo albums, destroyed and FRITZ RUDOLF KRAUS IN ISTANBUL (1937-1949) removed by the dustman. Fortunately, one of his students, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANCIENT NEAR Marten Stol, by then almost a retired professor himself and EASTERN STUDIES IN Kraus’s executor, persuaded him not to do so and to donate the collection to the library. You never knew, he reasoned, whether Jan SCHMIDT someone in the future might find them interesting. Kraus let himself be persuaded and so the letters, that is most letters, Fritz Rudolf Kraus (1910-1991), professor of Assyriology at Lei- found their way to the library. A small number of them, namely den University from 1953 until his retirement in 1980, was born those exchanged with old school-friends, were donated to in Spremberg in eastern . He was the son of a Jewish Kraus’s old gymnasium and were later moved to the Geheimes textile manufacturer who had married the daughter of family of Protestant farmers. Kraus studied Oriental languages, obtained Staatsarchiv in Berlin. So far only some of these — they have his doctorate in 1935 but two years later he felt forced to leave not yet been sorted — have come to light. The photographs, his native country where, as a ‘half-Jew’ under the Nazi regime, four of which are printed here, were brought to the strongroom he was barred from an academic career. He moved to Istanbul of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) in Lei- where his ‘Doktorvater’ and mentor Benno Landsberger had den, where they still are. In what follows, I will go into some arranged a job for him at the Archeological Museum as cata- more detail than I did earlier and will especially concentrate on loguer of its huge collection of cuneiform texts. Later he also an important topic documented in the letters, namely Kraus’s taught classes at Istanbul University. During the twelve years work in the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul, the historical he was to stay in Turkey, he remained in contact with Lands- background of its collections and the way in which Kraus and berger, who had been appointed professor in Ankara, with other colleagues, and, in the first place, with his family in Spremberg. his German colleagues contributed to the development of the Every fortnight he sent a detailed message home, describing his academic study of the Ancient Near East in Turkey. But first: daily life, the curious aspects of Turkish culture, his homesick- who was Kraus? And what are the letters about? ness, and his frustrations as a foreigner in an environment alien to the strict values of his native Prussia. Shortly before his death Biography Kraus donated a large collection of his letters to the library of Fritz Rudolf Kraus4) — Rudolf to his family — was born Leiden University. This article explores the content of the let- ters written by Kraus during his Istanbul period. Particular in Spremberg, a town north-east of Dresden and not far from attention is paid to his work and his contribution to the estab- the (present) Polish border, in 1910. His father, Siegfried lishment of Assyriology as an academic discipline in Turkey. Kraus, was a textile manufacturer born into a Jewish family Kraus wrote well and had a good eye for bizarre details as will in Vienna. He came to Germany when he was seventeen years be clear from a few letters quoted in extenso. old, was baptized and married Ilse Karge, who was descended from a Protestant family of farmers settled in Silesia. By the Introduction time the letters begin, Siegfried Kraus was major partner in the textile factory of Michelsohn & Ascher established in While cataloguing the Turkish manuscripts kept in the Lei- 1 Spremberg. Two sons were born: Fritz Rudolf and Werner. den University Library between 1998 and 2003, ) my atten- For his secondary education, Rudolf, clearly the intellectual of tion was drawn by one of the librarians to some Turkish let- the family, went to schools in Spremberg, Berlin, Görlitz and ters outside the Oriental collection. They had been found in a 2 Templin — the school in the latter town was the prestigious collection of letters donated to the library ) in 1990 by the Joachimsthaler Gymnasium, mentioned in his letters. Later he retired Professor of Assyriology, Fritz Rudolf Kraus, who was studied Semitic and Oriental languages in Munich (during the to die a year later. These, the librarian rightly presumed, might summer semester of 1928 and the winter semester of 1929- be of interest for my catalogue. I had, by way of trial, some 30) and Semitic languages in Leipzig. To his aunt Else Schnur folders brought to me in the reading room, and from that in Vienna he later wrote that the term ‘anti-Semitic’ had moment I was hooked. The content of the letters I saw was inspired him to these studies.5) In the latter university, perhaps utterly fascinating, not least because of Kraus’s personal and highly entertaining style of writing. A substantial part of the 4) Biographical data, not derived directly from the contents of the corre- letters covered the years 1937 to 1949, when Kraus lived in spondence, are based on M. Stol, “In Memoriam F.R. Kraus”, in Bibliotheca Istanbul. These letters give a lively picture of the daily life of Orientalis XLVIII, 3/4 (Leiden, mei-juli 1991), pp. 329-335. A number of an immigrant — but fugitive is perhaps a more suitable term other obituaries cover more or less the same ground: K.R. Veenhof, “Fritz Rudolf Kraus (21.3.1910 – 19.1.1991)”, in Archiv für Orientforschung here — in that city during difficult times. After reading more XXXVIII/XXXIX (1991-2), pp. 262-5; D.O. Edzard, “Fritz Rudolf Kraus, of the correspondence, I conceived the idea of publishing a 21.3.1910 – 19.1.1991”, in Zeitschrift für Assyriologie 81 (1991), pp. 1-3; selection of the letters. Together with Ludmila Hanisch of Gerhard Heuer, “Fritz Rudolf Kraus” * 21.3.1910 † 19.3 [!]. 1991’, in Alma Berlin, a colleague who is a specialist in the history of Orien- Mater Joachimica. Zeitschrift der Vereinigung Alter Joachimsthaler e.V. 71 (1991), pp. 1928-31; and M. Stol, “Fritz Rudolf Kraus, 21 maart 1910 – 19 tal studies in Germany, I am now busy preparing the edition. januari 1991”, in Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. At a conference in Germany, I presented a first summary paper Levensberichten en herdenkingen 1992 (Amsterdam 1993), pp. 33-7. on the letters for a panel organised by Ludmila Hanisch.3) 5) „[…] 1927 in Wien […] habe ich Deinen Ältesten restlos bewundert. Seine Bemerkung, ich würde als halber Jude wahrscheinlich ein Antisemit werden, war der Hauptgrund für meinen Entschluß, semitische Sprachen zu 1) So far three volumes have been published in Leiden. studieren: in meinem ehrlichen Bestreben, k e i n Antisemit zu werden, war 2) They are classified as BPL 3273. ich in meiner unberatenen Gymnasiastennaivität, von dem pseudowissen- 3) “Exil im Orient – Die Briefe von Fritz Rudolf Kraus aus Istanbul, schaftlichen Worte „Antisemit“ verführt, darauf gekommen, die Beschäfti- 1937-1949”, in Ludmila Hanisch (ed.), Der Orient in akademischer Optik; gung mit Semiticis sei der wirkliche Gegensatz von Antisemitismus. Die Beiträge zur Genese einer Wissenschaftsdisziplin. Orientwissenschaftliche semitischen Sprachen haben mich dann zur Assyriologie gebracht.“ Letter Hefte 20 (Halle (Saale) 2006), pp. 145-153. of 18.9.1949 (in sub-file 6/II). 93248_BIOR_2010-1-2_01 08-06-2010 17:25 Pagina 6

7 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXVII N° 1-2, januari-april 2010 8

the most important centre of cuneiform studies in Germany universities, had fled their country or had been imprisoned in since 1878, he was enrolled from 29 April 1930 until 15 April concentration camps. Soon afterwards Schwartz heard about 1935. Among his teachers were Fritz Hommel, Benno Lands- the academic reform in Turkey. Consulting a Swiss colleague, berger, Theo Bauer, Gotthelf Bergsträsser, Johannes Friedrich Albert Malche, professor of Pedagogics at the University of and Paul Koschaker, with most of whom he kept in touch by Geneva, who had been acting as adviser to the Turkish gov- letter after he had left Germany. Apart from ancient ernment in educational matters, Schwartz brought up the ques- Mesopotamian languages, he learnt Arabic, Turkish (from tion of whether it would be possible for at least some of the Herbert Duda, mentioned in the letters and also a correspon- dismissed academics to find shelter in Turkey. The matter was dent), Egyptian and Coptic. Kraus wrote a dissertation on taken up with the Turkish minister of Education, Re≥it Galip. Babylonian prognostic texts under Landsberger, who was to Negotiations went off well, and soon 30 German professors, remain a mentor and friend — though substitute father is per- most of them Jews or ‘half-Jews’, were contracted by the min- haps a better term; the German Doktorvater nicely indicates ister in July 1933, and more were to follow. In all, some 144 what he was for Kraus — and obtained his doctorate in 1935. academics with their families eventually found refuge in Shortly afterwards Landsberger, a Jew, was dismissed from Turkey, but not all of them stayed on if they found better posi- the University of Leipzig and was able to escape when he was tions in other countries.6) appointed professor in Ankara at the newly founded Faculty By another coincidence, historians of the ancient Near East for Linguistics, History and Geography. Kraus who, as a ‘half found a particular welcome because of Atatürk’s and his Jew’, had no academic future in Germany either, was to fol- nationalist friends’ idea that ancient and low in the summer of 1937. Landsberger had arranged that the Mesopotamia had been inhabited since olden times by peo- Turkish government appoint him as a cataloguer-cum-conser- ples, Sumerians, and others, who had actually been vator of the cuneiform texts kept in the Archaeological Turks. This so-called ‘Theory on Turkish History’ (Türk Museum in Istanbul. The salary was low and his contract was Tarih Tezi), flourished during these years and contributed to only temporary — it had to be renewed every year and some- the founding of chairs for Assyriology and Hittitology in times was not — each time the counsel of ministers had to Ankara. The sudden availability of specialists in these fields give its approval. He therefore was at the mercy of the Turk- of scholarship came in handy; they could help in the rewrit- ish government who might have in the future, perhaps at the ing of history according to the Turkish nationalistic agenda prompting of the Nazis, with whom they maintained friendly of the ruling party. Consequently, Turkish cuneiform studies relations almost to the end of the Second World War, decided started in Ankara with the appointment of Landsberger in the not to extend his contract and forced him to leave the coun- new chair of Assyriology in December 1935, followed by that try. Kraus was very much aware of this threat and it con- of his former student, Hans Gustav Güterbock, in the new tributed to feelings of unease and depression, expressed in the chair of Hittitology in the same city two months later.7) At letters. The Turkish government, moreover, did not particu- the University of Istanbul, the German archaeologist and Hit- larly welcome non-ethnic-Turkish immigrants during these titologist Hellmuth Bossert (1889-1961), not a refugee him- years, to put it mildly, and did not hesitate to extradite self and much detested by Kraus, was encouraged to found a refugees, including Jews under threat of prosecution in war- department for ancient languages and Near-Eastern archae- time Europe, if they were no longer considered useful to Turk- ology. He was appointed director in 1933 and stayed on until ish interests. This, fortunately, did not happen. Kraus was to his death.8) stay in Turkey until the end of 1949 — he never saw his father or mother again — when he was appointed professor in The Letters Vienna. In 1953 he was finally appointed professor in ‘the Languages and History of Babylonia and Assyria’ at Leiden To return to the letters. They cover the period 1937-1990; University. letters written or received before Kraus’s arrival in Istanbul have not survived. (Some of the photographs, though, have; Emigration to Turkey these, together with the family house, survived the destruc- tion of Spremberg by the Soviet army in the spring of 1945.) Kraus, like so many other Jewish or ‘half-Jewish’ acade- There are hundreds of them, both carbon copies of items mics, found refuge in Turkey, because, as chance had it, in Kraus sent and the originals he received, although not all the 1933, the very year when Hitler came to power, academic life series are complete. The letters are written in all kinds of lan- in Turkey underwent a revolution. The University of Istanbul, guages: German, later Dutch, English, French, Turkish, with until then called with an old-fashioned Ottoman term Daru l- fragments — often quotations — in Latin, Hebrew and fünun, underwent a process of transformation (modernisation) cuneiform script. The German of the letters by Kraus and whereby a considerable number, about 150, of old staff were Landsberger became increasingly spiked with Turkish terms dismissed by the Turkish government, which, at the same time took the opportunity to get rid of people, whom they found less politically reliable, among them indigenous Jews. At the 6) See for more details on this episode, Horst Widmann, Exil und Bil- same time, a new university was to be founded in Ankara — dungshilfe. Die deutschsprachige akademische Emigration in die Türkei the aforementioned faculty was to be part of this new institu- nach 1933 (Frankfurt/M. 1973), pp. 42-52, and Philipp Schwartz’s memoirs tion. The question arose of how to fill the vacancies. Not long in Notgemeinschaft. Zur Emigration deutscher Wissenschaftler nach 1933 in die Türkei (edited by him and Helge Peukert, Marburg 1995). For a dis- after the Machtübernahme in Berlin, Philipp Schwartz, pro- cussion of the hospitality of the Turkish government vis-à-vis Jews and the fessor of Pathology at Frankfurt University, had set up number of immigrants, see: Corry Guttstadt, Die Türkei, die Juden und der a ‘Beratungsstelle für deutsche Wissenschaftler’ (Council Holocaust (Berlin & Hamburg 2008), pp. 210-234. for German Scholars) in Zurich which was to save and sup- 7) Muazzez Çıg, “Atatürk and the Beginnings of Cuneiform Studies in Turkey”, in Journal of Cuneiform Studies (JCS) 40/2 (1988), pp. 211-6. port German academics who had been dismissed from their 8) Widmann, Exil, pp. 114-5. 93248_BIOR_2010-1-2_01 08-06-2010 17:25 Pagina 7

9 FRITZ RUDOLF KRAUS IN ISTANBUL (1937-1949) 10

and loanwords, including hybrid Turco-German verbs (e.g. not. Towards the end of the war, Kraus spent more than half forms of the fanciful verb dürten (‘to push’), from Turkish of his income on food alone. There was hardly money left dürtmek). Correspondents were colleagues, students, friends for coal or lignite and he had to content himself with fire- and family members, particularly (in fact almost exclusively) wood of dubious quality. Severe winters meant suffering his mother (who died in 1945) and his brother Werner (who from the cold. Summers, by contrast, were associated with survived him). These, together with the letters exchanged heat, fleas, louses, mosquitoes, stench and noise. On 19 June with Landsberger, are the most voluminous in the collection. 1942, he wrote to his brother Werner: Not surprisingly, the letters exchanged with colleagues were, “The second phenomenon which accompanies a Stambul sum- apart from gossip, often devoted to work and philological mer is the dust and stench. I have been here now for almost 5 matters. The letters exchanged with Werner discuss more years, but I still cannot get used to the smell and sight of these mundane things, including important historical events (like miserable, dilapidated alleys. Every morning when I set foot the death of Atatürk – in 1938 – the war, the disaster of the in these rubbish-strewn thoroughfares, I can choose whether infamous capital tax (varlık vergisi) which unjustly struck the to curse or vomit. The vermin and the damp heat inside and religious minorities in 1942, and consequently Kraus’s the smoke and dust outside make it impossible to get rid of the Greek-orthodox fiancée, Hariklia Anastasiades, and his often only too justifiable feeling that one is dirty. This stick- ing, itching, stinging, stinking dominates what I feel in this, impending (but avoided) internment in August 1944). More my sixth Stambul summer exactly as it did in all the others. A than these, it was day-to-day worries, money, housing, food human being craves a bath, a cold shower, at least a splash of parcels, love, homesickness, and the fate of family and water on the face or the wrists. But then one is confronted with friends that fill the pages of these letters. The letters written part 3 of the summer programme: there is no water. Not a drop by Werner provide an impressive picture of the difficult life for days on end. Repairs, they call it, this burst water pipe. The of a half-Jew in Nazi Germany (although the even more bit- newspapers shout themselves hoarse about the water supply. ter and humiliating aspects of it, suppressed by (self)censor- It does not help. There is still no water. One does not know ing, were only revealed after the war) and, after 1945, the beforehand and therefore cannot take the necessary measures. anxieties of a beginner entrepreneur in the Soviet Zone, later One district in the city, it is rumoured, has already been with- out water for 10 days. Now the wells have been besieged. Now the GDR. Low points were the expropriation of the textile people who can afford it want to buy ‘good water’. The only factory, ‘arianized’ by the Nazis in 1938, his imprisonment hygienically pure water is mains water, but it is chlorinated in a forced labour camp in Thuringia in 1945, and the threat and mostly has a bad taste. Therefore one drinks water from of execution shortly before the fall of Spremberg in April of wells or old water mains, fed by particular sources only. This the same year. water tastes good but is very dubious from a hygienic point of Kraus’s letters offer, as stated above, an impressive and view; all the same it is called good water. There are special sometimes depressing picture of his life in Istanbul as seen men, who sell it. Whereas normally a flask of it costs 18 Pfen- through the eyes of a foreigner who, especially in the early nig, whenever there is a shortage of water, they are asking 60 days, had trouble finding his way in an alien country, on the Pfennig for it. It is very funny to have to wash one’s manly body, all covered in sweat and dirt, with a ball of cotton wool one hand fascinating for its ‘oriental’ aspects, but on the and eau de Cologne (which, mind you, is hardly available any other at the same time often trite and disappointingly west- more). I know, of course, that millions of people nowadays ern. This was a country, moreover, where Kraus was con- live in this way but here, amidst peace and civilisation, one fronted with a terrible bureaucracy and maddening aspects gets annoyed by it.”9) of feigned courtesy to which as an arch-Prussian and soup- lessesiz adam (‘man without flexibility’), as he expressed it in hybrid Franco-Turkish, he could never get used. 9) „Zweite Begleiterscheinung eines Stambuler Sommers sind Staub und Although, under continual pressure from Landsberger, he Gestank. Ich bin hier schon fast 5 Jahre, aber ich konnte mich bisher immer did his best to ‘disprussianate’ (entpreussen). Kraus never- noch nicht an Geruch und Anblick dieser trostlos verwahrlosten Gassen gewöhnen. Jeden Morgen, wenn ich wieder meinen Fuß auf diese müll- theless took quite some trouble to familiarize himself with platzähnlichen Verkehrsadern setze, habe ich aufs neue die Wahl zwischen his new environment: he tried to improve his Turkish with Fluchen und Kotzen. Das Ungeziefer und die feuchte Wärme von innen, the help of a student and for some time read local newspa- Rauch und Staub von außen, lassen einen dazu niemals das meist nur zu pers. After some years, having problems with the rising berechtigte Gefühl loswerden, man sei schmutzig. Dieses Klebende, Juckende, Beißende, Stinkende, das ist mindestens meine Hauptempfindung flow of neologisms, he gave up and fell back to reading the in diesem meinen sechsten Stambuler Sommer genau wie in allen anderen. official French-language paper; he found it little more than Nun lechzt der Mensch nach einem Bad, einer kalten Dusch[1], wenigstens a contemptible rag, but there hardly was another medium, einem Schwall Wasser ins Gesicht und auf die Pulsadern. Aber da kommt apart from the equally disgusting Turkish radio, through das Sommerprogramm 3. Teil: [1]es gibt kein Wasser. Tagelang kein Trop- fen. Reparaturen, heißt es: Rohrbrüche. Die Zeitungen schreien sich heiser which to follow the news. A breakthrough came once he gegen die Wasserverwaltung. Es hilft nichts. Man ist ohne Wasser. Man had begun teaching classes at the university; he soon got weiß es ja vorher nicht und kann auch nichts einlassen deshalb. In einem fed up with employing a translator and tried to cope on his Stadtviertel soll es schon seit 10 Tagen kein Wasser geben. Nun werden own. During the years in Istanbul, Kraus did not make any die Brunnen belagert. Nun wollen die, die es sich leisten können, „Gutes Wasser“ kaufen. Das einzig wirklich hygienisch einwandfreie Wasser ist Turkish friends and only rarely was he invited to the homes das Leitungswasser, aber es ist gechlort und schmeckt meistens schlecht. of his Turkish colleagues. If he went out at all, he almost Deshalb trinkt man Wasser aus Quellen oder alten Wasserleitungen, die nur exclusively moved in the restricted circle of fellow-immi- bestimmte Brunnen speisen. Dieses Wasser schmeckt gut, ist aber hygie- grants. nisch sehr zweifelhaft und wird deshalb gutes Wasser genannt, besondere Männer verkaufen es. Aber während ein Bidon davon sonst 18 Pfennig An important theme in the letters is the increasing poverty kostet, verlangt man zu Zeiten der Leitungswasserlosigkeit 60 Pfennige from which he suffered caused by inflation: during the war dafür. Es ist lustig, sich den schweiß- und schmutzbedeckten Heldenleib the Turkish government, any time there was a lack of cur- mit einem Bäuschen Watte und Kölnisch Wasser waschen zu müssen (das rency, had money printed on a grand scale; consequently es nota bene kaum noch gibt). Ich weiß natürlich, daß jetzt Millionen von Menschen so leben, aber hier bei uns, in Frieden und Zivilisation, ärgert prices were rising all the time whereas official salaries did man sich eben doch darüber.“ 93248_BIOR_2010-1-2_01 08-06-2010 17:25 Pagina 8

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The complaining in which Kraus often indulged and which Kraus writes in the letter quoted above about ‘confisca- irritated Landsberger beyond measure, is compensated for, as tions’ and ‘forced donations’. Without these, indeed, the col- it were, by lyrical passages about the beautiful nature in the lection would have been much smaller and perhaps quite surroundings of Istanbul, its magnificent location, the fine insignificant. food offered in its restaurants, and the waters lapping its shores which at the time still brimmed with dolphins and tur- The Collection of Clay Tablets in the Archaeological tles. The city, one gets the impression from reading Kraus’s Museum descriptions, was still orderly, and in part still rural and leafy, and almost completely devoid of automobiles. To stem the tide of the growing export of ancient artefacts from the Ottoman lands, the Porte, from the second half of the th Work 19 century, began to issue laws directed against the pilfering of antiquities by Western archaeologists and others. Crucially A more important theme of the letters is, as stated earlier, there was a new law, published in 1884, which was an work. To his friend and colleague Leonie Zuntz (1908-42), a improvement on earlier attempts in this direction.11) It forbade fellow student in Munich who had fled to Oxford (where she the destruction, removal or export of any old artefact, from was to commit suicide), he explained his position in a letter coins to complete buildings, which were found in that terri- of 2 October 1937: tory, including its waters, and which originated from peoples, “Let’s start at the very beginning, and I beg you to pass over who had lived in the territory of the . quickly what you already know. [Actually, I wanted to speak Research and excavations could only be undertaken by per- on what follows at the Conference (organized by the Turkish mission of the Ottoman Ministry of Public Education. A gov- History Foundation (Türk Tarih Kurumu, TTK) in Istanbul the ernment representative, to be paid by the excavator, was to month before), so now my preparation on this unread paper supervise such undertakings. Requests for a permit were to be may yet be rewarded.] For about fifty years, a considerable addressed to the Ministry and the provincial governors con- number of clay tablets have been steadily arriving at what was cerned. Permission was only granted under strict conditions formerly the “Imperial Ottoman” Museum, partly from con- and could only be obtained against payment, the sum being fiscations, partly as forced donations by various foreign exca- vators. Since the [First World] war, only a few dozen Cap- dependent on the length of the period for which the permis- padocian tablets have been purchased. The collection contains sion was valid. Permission was not granted for research into texts from Telloh, Nippur, Assur, Sippar, Kish, Fara [archae- land surfaces measuring more than ten square kilometres. Per- ological sites in Mesopotamia] and smaller sources of prove- mission could always be withdrawn at the discretion of the nance. (I do not include Bogazköy in these as this collection Ministry. The aforementioned artefacts, once they had been is being preserved separately and has been edited all apart from found, being state property, were either to be sent to the Impe- a few tablets.) These tablets have therefore been laying here rial Museum [Müze-i hümayun] in Istanbul [founded in 1869] neglected for decades. No one knows whether there are 60,000, if they were important, or, if less important, to be sent to local 80,0000 or 100,000 of them. For decades Assyriology likewise idadiye (secondary) schools to be photographed and exhibited. has been demanding that these treasures be preserved and made available. When Landsberger went to Ankara, he imme- Such artefacts obtained or exported without authorization, diately took on this task. He eventually succeeded in persuad- were to be seized, and if inappropriately removed, had to be ing the Ministry [of Culture & Education] to have the collec- paid for. Exportation was only permitted if it concerned arte- tion preserved and catalogued in a scholarly way. Landsberger facts that resembled those that were kept in the Imperial undertook this work, of course, primarily with the general aca- Museum or had previously been imported into the Ottoman demic interest in mind, but, secondly, because he wished to Empire. Sanctions against those breaking the law included provide future opportunities for study and work for his many payment of damages, fines and imprisonment.12) Turkish students. If everything goes according to plan, when Before the implementation of the 1884 law, an immeasur- his students have at least learned something, they are to come able number of artefacts had found their way to private col- here and make copies [of the cuneiform texts in the museum collection]. This is, without doubt, an excellent plan. He had lections, public squares and museums in Europe and the New recommended me to the Ministry, who engaged me for the World. One has only to mention the term ‘Elgin Marbles’ or period from the 2nd of August 1937 up to the 31st of May 1938. ‘Mr. Kraus will classify the tablets kept in the museums in Istanbul within the shortest time possible and arrange them Landsberger nach Ankara ging, hat er sich der Sache sofort angenommen. according to academic principles in a catalogue. He will do the Er hat schließlich durchgesetzt, daß das Ministerium die Konservierung der necessary work related to the arranging and conservation of Tontafeln und ihre wissenschaftliche Katalogisierung beschloß. L. hat bei these tablets’”.10) seinen Bestrebungen erstens natürlich an das allgemein-wissenschaftliche Interesse gedacht, zweitens wollte er aber seinen zahlreichen türk. Studen- ten eine Studien- und spätere Arbeitsstätte erschließen. Wenn die Dinge 10) „Beginnen wir ab ovo, wobei ich Sie bitte, Bekanntes rasch zu über- nach seinem Kopfe gehen, sollen seine Schüler, wenn sie nur erst etwas fliegen. [Eigentlich wollte ich auf dem Kongreß über das folgende Thema gelernt haben, dann hierher kommen und kopieren was zweifellos ein aus- sprechen, jetzt sollen meine Vorarbeiten für diesen nicht gehaltenen Vor- gezeichneter Plan ist. Er hat mich dem Ministerium empfohlen, das mich trag noch zu Ehren kommen]. Seit etwas fünfzig Jahren sind fast ständig für die Zeit vom 2.VIII.37 bis 31.V.38 engagiert hat, „Herr Kraus wird die beträchtliche Mengen von Tontafeln in das hiesige (ehemals eben „Kai- in den Museen zu Ist. enthaltenen Tafeln in kürzester Zeit auf wissen- serlich ottomanische“) Museum gelangt, teils aus Konfiskationen, teils als schaftlicher Grundlage klassifizieren und diese in einem Katalog ordnen. Zwangsgabe der diversen ausländischen Ausgräber. Nach dem Kriege, sind Es wird bei der Ordnung und Aufbewahrung [Übersetzungsfehler statt dann nur noch ein paar Dutzend kappadokischen Tafeln gekauft worden. „Konservierung“] dieser Tafeln damit verbundenen Arbeit leisten.“ Die Sammlung besteht aus Texten von Telloh, Nippur, Assur, Sippar, Kis, 11) For a survey of the preliminaries, see Wendy M.K. Shaw, Posses- Fara und kleineren Provenienzen. (Dabei übergehe ich Bogazköy, das sepa- sors and Possessed. Museums, Archaeology, and the Visualisation of rat aufbewahrt wird und bis auf wenige Tafeln ediert ist). Diese Tafeln lie- History in the Late Ottoman Empire (Berkeley, Los Angeles & London gen hier also seit Jahrzehnten ungepflegt herum, niemand weiß, sind es 2003), pp. 83-110. 60000, 80000 oder 100 000. Die Assyriologie verlangt ebenfalls seit Jahr- 12) George Young, Corps de droit ottoman II (Oxford 1905), pp. 388- zehnten die Konservierung und Zugänglichmachung dieser Schätze. Als 94. 93248_BIOR_2010-1-2_01 08-06-2010 17:25 Pagina 9

13 FRITZ RUDOLF KRAUS IN ISTANBUL (1937-1949) 14

‘Priam’s Treasure’ connected with the names of, respectively, Fund and was involved in the excavation of mounds at Nuf- Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin and Ambassador to the far (ancient Nippur). The second famous figure was the auto- Porte, and the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, to cratic Robert Koldewey (1855-1925), who was not a philol- have an inkling of what this meant (and still means to the ogist but an architect and archaeologist, who was sent by the British, Greeks, Turks, Germans and others). Another inter- German Oriental Society (Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, esting case was that of the so-called ‘Incantadas’, a group of DOG) to work at Babylon in about the same period. seven caryatides, removed, much against the will of their Both projects were highly successful. During four cam- Jewish owner, from Salonica by the French savant Emmanuel paigns undertaken in the years between 1888 and 1900 sup- Miller in 1864 (and described in Mazower’s book on the his- ported by the Babylon Exploration Fund, about 35,000 tablets tory of the city).13) During this century, meanwhile, the atten- with cuneiform inscriptions were unearthed at Nippur, among tion of learned travellers, explorers and adventurers had been them, during the last expedition, a complete, what at the time moving away from remains of the Greek and Roman civi- seemed to have constituted, ‘temple library’. Research into lizations and Mesopotamia became increasingly more promi- the texts undertaken during the first half of the twentieth cen- nent. The (re-)discovery of the ancient cultures of that region tury, and in particular during the 1930s and 1940s by the progressed apace with the decipherment of the cuneiform American scholar Samuel Kramer (1897-1990), led, if not to script and the increasingly successful revival of long-dead the discovery, at least to a major breakthrough in our knowl- languages and literatures. Excavations at Nineveh and edge of a hitherto little known language and literature, that Khorsabad by Paul Émile Botta and at Nimrud by Austen of Sumer. The story of the excavation and fate of this spec- Henry Layard in the1840s marked the beginning of a culti- tacular treasury, mostly known from correspondence, diaries vation and imitation of the arts of Babylonia in the West and and reports produced by those involved, explains how things furnished the Louvre and the British Museum with priceless worked out in practice after 1884. What is above all clear is collections of Assyrian reliefs, sculptures and tablets with that most explorers were unaware of the new Ottoman legis- cuneiform texts. lation, or if they knew, thought they could ignore it or bribe This is not to say that the Ottoman Empire was up for their way out. To a certain extent, they were still successful grabs before legislation in the second half of the nineteenth in doing so. century. At all times, foreigners had needed permission in the Of the roughly 35,000 tablets found in Nippur, about form of a ferman (edict) from the Porte to enter into and to 17,000 eventually ended up in the Istanbul Museum — it was travel around in the Empire, and also needed permission to for this reason its second largest sub-collection (the largest undertake any sort of activity there like making drawings and were those found in Lagash, about 35,000 tablets in all). modelling plaster, erecting scaffolding, digging and remov- Thanks to the persistent lobbying of Hilprecht in Istanbul and ing sculptures, inscriptions and so forth, but that did not halt despite the law of 1884, about the same number (17,000) the plundering of the local cultural heritage. Did the new laws came to Philadelphia and about 2000 to, at first, the private make any difference? That is difficult to say, and perhaps library of the professor in Jena — this caused a scandal and they did only during the last decades of the existence of the seriously damaged Hilprecht’s reputation — and later to the Ottoman Empire. At all times, legal rules could, if one tried university library of that city. The division of the spoils in hard (and paid enough), be circumvented. Especially the Ger- Istanbul had the awkward result that sometimes parts of a sin- mans were successful in arranging for “special dispensation gle, broken tablet were divided between the collections on to export a considerable number of antiquities”, and the activ- either side of the Atlantic Ocean.17) It also forced scholars ity of smugglers, locals and foreigners, never stopped.14) Nev- like Kramer to work in three locations, instead of in one. ertheless, the fact remains that eventually an enormous More spectacular, to the non-expert and non-philologist amount of tablets, as Kraus wrote, did end up in the Istanbul that is, were the German excavations in Babylon and the museum. This development only started seriously in 1894, rather meek co-operation, again, of the Ottoman authorities. that is ten years after the law of 1884 had come into force, Koldewey, who had had experience with excavations in and three years after more space became available in the Assos, Lesbos and southern Italy, was asked in 1896 by the Istanbul Museum by the opening of the so-called Sarcopha- Director of the Royal Museums in Berlin, Richard Schöne, gus Museum.15) to join an expedition to Mesopotamia to investigate possible The tablets that began to arrive in the museum from that sites for excavation. They decided to settle for a site near year onwards had their origin in about twelve sites excavated Qasr on the (reputedly the fortress of Nebuchad- by, mostly, German, French and American archaeologists – nezzar, ‘Tower of Babel’, and part of the ancient Babylon), a small number had their origin in the antiquities market (and not yet occupied by other rival archaeologists and famous for had been confiscated).16) A dominating figure in the history beautiful, mostly blue, glazed tiles (the remnants of which of excavations about that time was a famous — some would were traded by robbers).18) The excavations, assisted during say infamous — professor of Assyriology at the University the first years by Assyriologists19) (with whom, inevitably, of Pennsylvania, Hermann Hilprecht (1859-1924), a German Koldewey quarrelled), financed by the DOG and warmly sup- by origin who, like Kraus, had studied at the University of ported by Kaiser Wilhelm II, began in March 1899 and were Leipzig. He worked for the American Babylon Exploration

17) See for this episode Bruce Kuklick, Puritans in Babylon. The Ancient Near East and American Intellectual Life, 1880-1930 (Princeton, New Jer- 13) Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Gosts. Christians, Muslims and sey 1996), p. 35, passim. Jews 1430-1950 (London 2005, paperback edition), pp. 213-20. 18) Robert Koldewey, Heitere und ernste Briefe aus einem deutschen 14) Shaw, Possessors and Possessed, p. 129. Archäologenleben (Berlin 1925), pp. 127-8; 136-7. The expedition is descri- 15) Shaw, Possessors and Possessed, p. 157. bed by Walter Andrae in his Babylon, die versunkene Weltstadt und ihr 16) See the detailed survey in F.R. Kraus, “Die Istanbuler Tontafel- Ausgräber Robert Koldewey (Berlin 1952), pp. 82-9. sammlung”, in JCS I (1947), pp. 93-119. 19) Bruno Meissner, 1899-1900, and Franz Weissbach, 1901-3. 93248_BIOR_2010-1-2_01 08-06-2010 17:25 Pagina 10

15 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXVII N° 1-2, januari-april 2010 16

to last for eighteen years. The main attention of Koldewey Space does not permit me to discuss more of the many and his team was paid to the buildings they unearthed. Hun- archaeological exploits by Westerners and the attitude of dreds of crates with pieces, in particular remains of the Ottomans toward them, but from the examples discussed famous glazed tiles, were sent directly by ship to Hamburg, above it must be clear that despite the change in official and from there along the River Elbe and Havel to Berlin from Ottoman policy vis-à-vis the antiquities preserved in their 1903 onwards.20) In 1905, however, Koldewey’s long-term ‘well-protected lands’ in the course of the nineteenth century, permit was withdrawn when he tried to prevent Bedri Bey, the Porte continued to be ready to ignore its own antiquities the representative of the Istanbul museum, from confiscating policies and return to old practices, if foreign archaeologists packed cases with finds from Qal’at Sharqat (ancient Assur), and their supporters either by their charm or their purse were another site excavated by Koldewey and Walter Andrae able to persuade them to do so. The influence behind the under the auspices of the DOG.21) This incident, unfortu- scenes of the Kaiser, who was considered to be a friend of nately, is not mentioned in Koldewey’s letters or the book by the sultan, Abdülhamid II (ruled 1876-1909), certainly also Andrae on the excavations. Perhaps as a consequence of the played a role in the case of the Germans.25) interference from on high, 536 crates, 400 of them filled with Nevertheless, the Istanbul Museum obtained its vast col- remnants of glazed tiles, were still awaiting shipment in 1917. lection of written tablets, and Kraus’s pioneering work, which They had been abandoned by the Germans when Koldewey went on for more than ten years, helped to make the collec- and other members of the DOG campaign were forced to flee tion accessible to academic research. Before and after the war, from the British expeditionary force that had invaded Kraus helped European and American scholars to find their Mesopotamia. After protracted negotiations, the crates were way in the collection and help them to obtain photographs. released by the Iraqis in 1921, but they only arrived in Berlin An important visitor was the aforementioned Samuel Kramer, in 1927.22) What remained in the Istanbul museum of the who, supported by a Guggenheim scholarship, went to Turkey Babylon excavations was a collection of photographs marked in 1937 to work in the museum. (As a Jew, he had encoun- ‘Koldewey – 1910’, as Kraus reported to Hans Ehelolf (1891- tered serious difficulties in starting a regular academic career 1939) in Berlin in a letter of 27 August 1937. Among the in the US.) He stayed until 1939. In his memoirs, Kramer paid most spectacular, visible results of the excavations in Baby- tribute to Kraus’s support: ‘When I arrived at the museum I lon was the Ishtar Gate reconstructed in the Berlin Pergamum was happy to learn that he [Kraus] had already identified, Museum between 1927 and 1930. Less well known is the fact roughly, and set aside, several hundred Nippur literary pieces that in Babylon, too, cuneiform tablets were found. These which I could begin to study and copy at once.’26) This work included 5225 items in all, only 130 of which reached the laid the basis for a number of important publications. Thus Istanbul Museum; 2300 came to the Near Eastern Museum Landsberger’s plan of putting Kraus to the task of sorting out in Berlin, a small number ended up in the Iraq Museum in the enormous collection worked out well. Baghdad, and various pieces went to other collections.23) Sadly, the site of the Babylon excavations was severely dam- Teaching at Istanbul University aged as a result of the two recent invasions of Iraq. A last case, finally, I should mention, also because there is Apart from his work in the museum, Kraus was also a clear parallel to Koldewey’s activities (although no employed by the university to teach classes in Ancient Near cuneiform texts were involved here). It concerns the excava- Eastern History. His lectures were partly based on finds made tions conducted by the diplomat and amateur archaeologist, during cataloguing work. He had a first attempt in 1940 when Max von Oppenheim (1860-1946), at Tell Halaf in Syria in he (informally and unpaid) joined a seminar on the Cimme- the years immediately preceding the First World War. rians (nomads who began to play a political role in Although von Oppenheim had obtained permission from the Mesopotamia in the eighth century BC) given by Clemens Porte to dig and his exploits had the keen interest of the Bosch (1899-1955 – he went to Istanbul in 1935 after he had Kaiser, Halil Bey (Halil Edhem [Eldem], 1861-1938), Direc- been dismissed by the University of Halle because of his tor of the Ottoman museums, referring to the text of the Antiq- ‘non-Arian’ wife). Kraus taught in German and communi- uities Law, forbade the export to Germany of the artefacts that cated with the students through an interpreter. Soon he no had been unearthed, and only after protracted negotiations and longer felt the need of such a go-between and improvised his offerings of money, were 43 chests with smaller finds allowed discourse in Turkish, sometimes with hilarious results. After to be exported. This was in 1913. Only fourteen years later, one and a half year of efforts and interventions by Lands- in 1927, the French colonial authorities in Syria allowed berger at the Ministry of Education in Ankara, Kraus was another thirteen trainloads of bigger objects to be removed, finally, in January 1942, appointed as a (paid) assistant lec- although part of these had to remain in the country and later turer in Sumerian and Assyrian at Istanbul University. The found their way to the National Museum in Aleppo.24) contract was to last until 31 May 1943, but was later renewed. He had his first class on 9 March 1942 in rooms in the Dolmabahçe Palace, after the old building, part of the Old 20) Andrae, Babylon, pp. 176-9. Palace, on the university campus in Beyazit had threatened 21) Shaw, Possessors and Possessed, p. 124. to collapse, and soon after burnt down. His classes comprised 22) Wiedererstehendes Babylon. Eine antike Weltstadt im Blick der For- 30 to 50, mostly female, students. schung (Berlin 1991), p. 53. The teaching by German Assyriologists, Hittitologists and 23) Olof Pedersén, Archive und Bibliotheken in Babylon. Die Tontafeln der Grabung Robert Koldeweys 1899-1917 (Berlin 2005), p. 1; the 130 Ist- archeologists such as Landsberger, Güterbock, Bosch and anbul tablets do not seem to be mentioned in Kraus’s “Istanbuler Tonta- felsammlung”. 24) Gabriele Teichmann & Gisela Völger (eds.), Faszination Orient: 25) Cf. Shaw, Possessors and Possessed, p. 117. Max Oppenheimer, Forscher, Sammler, Diplomat (Cologne 2003), pp. 67, 26) Samuel Noah Kramer, In the World of Sumer. An Autobiography 70, 80. (Detroit 1986), p. 56. 93248_BIOR_2010-1-2_01 08-06-2010 17:25 Pagina 11

17 FRITZ RUDOLF KRAUS IN ISTANBUL (1937-1949) 18

Kraus of Turkish students laid a firm basis for the study of referred to earlier. A printed catalogue, as Kraus had hoped that Sumerology, Assyriology and related disciplines in Turkey. his work would result in, did not materialize. Researchers today These studies are still being taught at Turkish universities who want to use the collection are still dependent, I am afraid, today. Perhaps the most famous student of Landsberger, on the original file cards, made by Kraus, in loco. The non-pub- Güterbock and Kraus was Muazzez Itil (later Çıg), a staunch lication of a catalogue, Kraus had understood by then, had a defender of secularism, who a few years ago became the purpose and had never been an option, as he explained in a let- focus of world-wide public interest when she reminded the ter of 17 June 1946 to Albrecht Goetze, professor in Yale (and, Turks that head scarves were originally worn by temple pros- like Kraus, an emigrant who had fled from Nazi Germany): titutes in Ancient Mesopotamia.27) By then she was already “The organisation of our museum and the position of a con- a well-known public figure in Turkey and her multi-volume servator of clay tablets here now is completely different from collected works, published by Kaynak Yayınları, are for sale those in the well-known great museums and an outsider may in Turkish bookshops. Kraus first met her in 1940, when she, find it impossible to form an idea of the set-up here. Bureau- in the company of her friend Hatice Kızılyay, arrived from cracy and centralisation of the administration are the most Ankara. They were to be trained as conservationists in the important characteristics of the system here. The museum is museum under Kraus’s supervision and the latter spent long subordinated to a department of the Ministry of Culture in hours teaching them how to copy cuneiform texts on paper.28) Ankara and has no autonomy whatsoever. The administration Later they worked with Kraus on an edition of ‘Old-Baby- is in the hands of civil servants pure and simple, only a small lonian Juridical texts from Nippur’, eventually in 1952 pub- number of whom have enjoyed an academic education. A lished by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Education in museum is de facto considered to be a storeroom full of fiscal German and Turkish. Other budding philologists and archae- objects, not in any way as an institute of learning. The collec- ologists with whom Kraus came into contact (and are men- tion of clay tablets is somehow considered to be a treasure tioned in the letters) include Mustafa Kalaç, Halet Çambel, which can only keep its value by careful concealment.”30) I fear Emin Bilgiç, Kemal Balkan and Muhibbe Darga.29) that nothing much has changed much since those days. His main task, meanwhile, remained the cataloguing of the I will end with a letter written by Kraus to his mother on clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions. Despite the fascinat- 20 December 1939, which gives a fine picture of Kraus’s ing engagement with texts thousands of years old which had work in the museum: not been read by anyone since the time of their origin, Kraus “There are, then, these clay tablets lying around me which cer- often became depressed when he realized that his academic tainly no-one has as yet properly counted, numbering, I believe, career was stalled, year after year after year. After the war, he about a hundred thousand pieces – only in London is there a col- pondered the idea of returning to Germany – but decided lection that is larger than this. They range from being the size against this – or applying for a job in the US, which soon of a barley-sugar lozenge to that of a large book. They are proved to be impossible. To settle definitively in Turkey was almost all rectangular, their obverse is flat, their reverse gently not an option either – it would mean ‘spiritual suicide’. For the curved, mostly neatly lined and inscribed with a script that can time being, therefore, there was no other possibility than to stay. only be distinguished through a magnifying glass — amazing things in short. They are made of ordinary clay; if you were to The prospects were bleak, however. As a foreigner, he could submerge them in water, all that would remain in your hand after not apply for a higher academic position, nor even become a three minutes would be a clayey pulp. And yet these apparently proper civil servant. Worse even was that his contract forbade frail things have 2500 to 3000, even 4000, years behind them him from publishing anything without explicit permission from and have often survived very well! The pieces that the old the Turkish government. Requests for that purpose mostly Sumerians and Babylonians wanted to preserve, more or less as remained unanswered or were rejected. This meant in practice we have written or printed matter bound in volumes, they fired, that publications could at most be co-authored with a local, as one fires bricks and porcelain. Such fired tablets are most Turkish scholar, and had to be in the Turkish language and were durable. The others: letters, bills, school exercises etc. are only to be published by the ministry or the museum. Such publica- dried clay. These are now fired by us in a porcelain kiln in our laboratory in order to make them durable and to protect them tions, once they were handed in to be printed, often lay gath- against the effects of the rather damp Istanbul climate, which ering dust for years before they saw the light of day (as hap- does not do the tablets any good. Once the tablets have been pened to the edition of the juridical texts, mentioned earlier). fired and thoroughly cleaned, they come back to me in the depot This meant that he could not publish much, if anything. where my actual job begins, namely cataloguing them. The cat- Although he was given the opportunity to present a summary alogue is not written down in a note book, as was previously the of his cataloguing work so far at the Third History Conference case, but on file cards that I have designed and which the Turks organized by the Turkish History Foundation (TTK) in Ankara seem to be very much pleased with; it is the most modern cat- in November 1943, his brief statement, in Turkish, on the Istan- aloguing system for clay tablets on earth. The cards are twice bul collection, was heard by few and only published in the col- the size of a big postcard and as thick, and in five different lected conference papers in 1948. By then he had, exception- ally, received permission to have a more detailed description 30) „Nun ist die Einrichtung unseres Museums und die Stellung eines (in German) of the various sub-collections published in the first Tontafelkonservators hier eine ganz andere als in den bekannten großen issue of the American Journal of Cuneiform Studies in 1947, Museen und es dürfte einem Außenstehenden unmöglich sein, sich von sich aus eine Vorstellung von den hiesigen Verhältnissen zu machen. Bürokra- tismus und Zentralisierung der Verwaltung sind die Hauptkennzeichen des hiesigen Systems. Das Museum untersteht einer Abteilung des Kultusmi- 27) Cf. Serhat Öztürk, Çivi çiviyi söker.“Muazzez Çıg Kitabı” (Istanbul nisteriums in Ankara und hat keine irgendwelche Autonomie. Die Verwal- 2006, 4th impr.), p. 124. tung ist in Händen reiner Verwaltungsbeamter, von denen nur ein kleiner 28) Cf. her reminiscence of Kraus and the challenging copying lessons Teil Universitätsbildung besitzt. Ein Museum wird de facto als Speicher in: Öztürk, Çivi çiviyi söker, pp. 74-5, 77. voll von fiskalischen Objekten angesehen, keineswegs als lebendigen wis- 29) Cf. for biographical details, Muhibbe Darga Armaganı (Istanbul senschaftliches Institut. Die Tontafelsammlung gilt irgendwie als ein Schatz, 2008). der nur durch sorgfältiges Verbergen seinen Wert behalten kann.“ 93248_BIOR_2010-1-2_01 08-06-2010 17:25 Pagina 12

19 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LXVII N° 1-2, januari-april 2010 20

1. Orientalists sitting on a balcony in Leipzig; with Benno Lands- 2. Kraus at the entrance of the Department of the Ancient Near East berger (second from left) and Fritz Rudolf Kraus (far right) (undated of the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul, with Hittite lion statues photograph, before 1937). (undated photograph, 1937-1949).

3. Fritz Rudolf Kraus and Hariklia Anastasiades in Istanbul (undated 4. Kraus on a ferry in the Bosphorus (undated photograph,1937- photograph, 1942-1949). 1949). 93248_BIOR_2010-1-2_01 08-06-2010 17:25 Pagina 13

21 NINETEENTH DYNASTY STELAE AND THE MERITS OF HIEROGLYPHIC PALAEOGRAPHY 22

colours: white, light yellow, bright yellow, green and red. The state printing house has printed several lines on them so that the card is divided into thirteen different big rectangular boxes. In every box a particular detail will be entered, for instance the size of the tablet, its height, breadth and thickness in centimetres, the number of lines, the language in which the inscription is writ- ten (we have tablets from three millennia), a description of what it looks like, a description of the script and, above all, a short statement on its content. I, then, have to measure each tablet pre- cisely, to count its lines, and, above all, decipher, what is actu- ally written on it. That is often very difficult, namely if the tablet is broken or its surface has crumbled and the inscription is erased or destroyed. Then the poems get a red card, letters a brown one, school exercises a yellow one, contracts a bright yel- low one, and official documents a green or white one, depend- ing on the date and the language in which they are written. On the top right side of every card the tablet number is indicated and edged in bold. This number is artistically written on the tablet with Chinese ink and should in fact be covered with a coat of varnish in order to protect it, but unfortunately there is no varnish here and I put up with it. Next, the tablets are arranged in order in small cupboards, that each contain fifty very shallow drawers. […] The catalogue really ought to be printed some day as other museums do, but that is still in the distant future. This is then how I spend my days in the museum, while my servant, a pilgrim who has been to Mecca, sits nearby, having put his chair on top of a chest near a window, in order to be able to look outside, while reading his Koran in a low voice or dozing off. At noon he toasts his dry bread which constitutes his main meal (he has three big children and earns 50 marks per month), on our sturdy iron stove and sometimes we have a conversation about the world, people, his childhood experiences in the coun- tryside or his pilgrimage. Otherwise, nothing much happens. Sometimes I go over to the big library in the main museum building which is accommodated in a beautiful hall and chat with a colleague of mine who is a cataloguer of coins [Clemens Bosch] and the daughter of a member of Parliament [Halet Çam- bel] who works there as a volunteer. I≥te o kadar: that is Turk- ish and means roughly ‘Yes, that’s the way of it’.”31)

Leiden University, February 2010

die Größe der Tafeln, Höhe, Breite und Dicke in Zentimetern, die Zahl der Zeilen, die Sprache, in der die Inschrift verfaßt ist, die Zeit, in der die Tafel geschrieben worden ist (wir haben Tafeln aus drei Jahrtausenden), Beschrei- 31) „Da sind also die Tontafeln um mich herum, die wohl noch keiner rich- bung ihres Aussehens, Beschreibung der Schrift und vor allem eine kurze tig gezählt hat, von denen ich aber glaube, daß es so rund einhunderttausend Angabe ihres Inhaltes. Ich muß also jede Tafel genau messen, die Zeilen Stück sind – nur in London gibt es eine noch größere Sammlung. In der Größe zählen und vor allem herausbringen, was eigentlich darauf steht. Das ist oft gehen sie vom Malzbonbon bis zum großen Buch, sind fast alle viereckig, die sehr schwer, wenn die Tafel nämlich zerbrochen ist oder die Oberfläche abge- Vorderseite flach, die Rückseite sanft herausgewölbt, meist schön liniert und bröckelt und die Inschrift verwischt oder zerstört ist. Dann bekommen die mit einer Schrift beschrieben, die man oft nur mit der Lupe gut sehen kann, Gedichte eine rote Karte, die Briefe eine braune, die Schulhefte eine gelbe, erstaunliche Dinger. Sie sind aus gewöhnlichem Lehm, legt man sie in Was- die Kontrakte hellgelbe, die Magistratsakten grüne oder weiße, je nach der ser, so hat man nach drei Minuten nur noch feuchten Lehmpaps in der Hand, Zeit und Sprache, in der sie verfaßt sind. Auf jeder Karte steht rechts oben in und doch haben diese anscheinend so gebrechlichen Dinger 2500, 3000 und einem stark umrandeten Felde die Tafelnummer, diese Nummer wird kunst- auch 4000 Jahre hinter sich und oft sehr gut überstanden! Die Stücke, die die voll mit chinesischer Tusche auf die Tafel geschrieben und soll dann eigent- alten Sumerer und Babylonier aufheben wollen, also etwa das, was wir von lich zum Schutze mit Lack überzogen werden, leider gibt es aber diesen Lack unsern geschriebenen oder gedruckten Sachen einbinden lassen, haben sie hier nicht und ich muß es lassen. Die Tafeln kommen denn der Reihe nach in gebrannt, wie man Ziegel oder Porzellan brennt; solche gebrannten Tafeln kleine Schränke, die jeder fünfzig ganz niedrige Schubfächer haben. […] Der sind sehr dauerhaft. Die anderen, Briefe, Rechnungen, Schulhefte u.s.w. sind Katalog sollte eigentlich später einmal gedruckt werden, wie das in anderen nur getrockneter Ton, und diese werden jetzt bei uns im Laboratorium in einem Museen gemacht worden ist, aber das liegt noch in weitem Felde. Mit solchen Porzellan-Brennofen gebrannt, um sie dauerhaft zu machen und vor den Ein- Tätigkeiten verbringe ich also meine Tage im Museum, mein Diener, der Mek- flüssen des eher feuchten Stambuler Klimas zu schützen, welches den Tafeln kapilger, sitzt dabei, hat seinen Stuhl an einem Fenster auf eine Kiste gestellt, sehr schlecht bekommt. Sind die Tafeln gebrannt und umständlich gesäubert, um gut hinausgucken zu können, liest halblaut in seinem Koran oder nickt dann kommen sie wieder zu mir ins Dépôt, wo meine eigentliche Arbeit mit ein; mittags röstet er sich sein trockenes Brot, das seine Hauptnährung bildet ihnen beginnt, die Katalogisierung. Der Katalog wird nicht in ein Heft (er hat drei große Kinder und verdient im Monat 50.- RM), auf unserem geschrieben, wie man das früher machte, sondern auf Karten, die ich entwor- wackeren Eiserofen und manchmal haben wir dann eine Unterhaltung über fen habe und die Türken sehr gut zu gefallen scheinen: es ist das modernste die Weltlage, die Menschen, seine Kindheitserlebnisse auf dem Lande oder Tontafel-Katalogisierungs-System der Welt. Die Karten sind doppelt so groß seine Pilgerfahrt. Sonst passiert nicht sehr viel, manchmal gehe ich hinüber in wie eine große Postkarte und ebenso dick, in fünf verschiedenen Farben, weiß, das Hauptmuseum in die große Bibliothek, die in einem schönen Saale unter- mattgelb, gelb, grün und rot; darauf hat die Staatsdruckerei verschiedene gebracht ist, und plaudere mit meinem Kollegen, dem Münzen-Katalogisator, Linien gedruckt, durch die die Karte in 13 verschieden große rechteckige und der Tochter eines Reichstagsabgeordneten, die dort als Voluntärin arbei- Fächer geteilt wird. In jedes Fach kommt nun eine bestimmte Angabe, z.B. tet. I≥te o kadar: das ist türkisch und heißt so ungefähr „ja ja so ist’s“.“