Coldeway, Robert

Born in the family of customs officer Herman Koldevei and his wife Doris, nee Kupfer. His uncle Karl was a famous traveler, polar explorer and director of the Admiralty in Hamburg . Robert Koldeway began his studies at the gymnasium in Braunschweig ; in 1869 the family moved to Altona , where he in the status of "tertianer" (a student of the 5-6th grade of the gymnasium) entered the Christianeum gymnasium and in 1875 received a matriculation certificate there; in the document for admission to the Christianum, he designated construction as his future desired profession ^[1] . After studying architecture, archeology and the history of art in Berlin, Munich and Vienna, completed without obtaining a degree, he got an unpaid post of a small official for technical issues of the regionalsbauführer (this position was usually occupied by engineers of one or another specialization who could get paid after a three-year internship civil servant) in the free and Hanseatic cities of Hamburg. In the same period, Koldevei established contacts with Franz Andreas Meyer, uncle of the famous archaeologist and Egyptologist Eduard Meyer , and Alfred Lichtwark, the first director of the Hamburg Kunsthalle .

In 1882, Koldevei, hired by the American archaeologist Francis Bacon Henry, took part in his first expedition to the northern Mediterranean coast in Assos . As a result of his work in it, in 1885 he received an order from the German Archaeological Institute for another excavation in Lesvos, and then another in Mesopotamia, the purpose of which was to search for ancient ruins. In 1890-1891 and in 1894 he participated in excavations led by Felix von Luschan, the Aramaic city of Samal (Zincirli) in southeastern Turkey. From January to July 1892 and from October 1893 to January 1894 he traveled with Otto Puchstein to southern Italy and Sicily, where they were engaged in the measurements and description of ancient temples; Koldevei himself carried out drawings and schematic plans of temples. In 1894, for his work, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Freiburg . In 1895, Koldevei taught for some time at the construction school in Görlitz , but - as one of his letters to Pukhshtein implies - did not receive pleasure from this work ^[2] .

In the winter of 1897/1898, Koldevei, together with orientalist Eduard Zachau, went on a reconnaissance expedition to Mesopotamia, the purpose of which was to determine places for future excavations, which were planned to begin on January 24, 1898 at the initiative of the German Eastern Society . During this period of time, among others, they visited the ruins of such ancient cities as Ashur , Uruk , Nineveh and Lars . Largely because of his arguments, based on the presence of colored glazed tiles, it was Babylon that was chosen as the excavation site, although it was originally planned to lead them in Ashur; the option with Nineveh fell away, since the British had already worked there. The effect on the directorship of museums in Berlin by the demonstration by Koldevei of fragments of glazed reliefs also became an important factor in financing the expedition by the German Eastern Society, the government and Kaiser Wilhelm II. On December 12, 1898, Koldevei crossed the Euphrates , and on March 26, 1899, excavations of Babylon on the territory of modern Iraq began. The activity of Koldevei in the Euphrates Valley, originally planned for a period of 5 years, ended only in 1917 with the entry of British troops into Baghdad during the First World War . For 18 years - starting in 1903 - he conducted excavations in Ashur, Shuruppak, Abu Khatab and Uruk, interrupted by only three relatively short vacation trips to Germany in 1904, 1901 and 1915 ^[3] .

Upon returning from Mesopotamia, Koldevei settled in Berlin and worked as director of external relations at the Berlin Museum. In 1921, he participated in excavations on the Arkon , the island of Rugen , together with Karl Schuchardt , who in 1925 published letters from Koldevey and then his obituary. He died after a long illness caused by harsh living conditions during long excavations. The tombstone of his grave at the Lichterfelde cemetery in Steglitz-Zelendorf is made in the form of a Babylonian ziggurat ^[4] .

• Felicitas Noeske: Held von Babylon. Robert Koldewey . In: Christianeum , 60. Jahrgang, Heft 2/2005; S. 26-32
• Wiedererstehendes Babylon. Eine antike Weltstadt im Blick der Forschung . Berlin, 1991 (Katalog der Ausstellung Wiedererstehendes Babylon , Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte der Staatlichen Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz)

• Robert Johann Caldeway