Hermann Hunger
{{Short description|Austrian Assyriologist}}
{{Expand German|topic=bio|Hermann Hunger|date=October 2010}}
{{Infobox person/Wikidata | fetchwikidata=ALL|occupation=Assyriologist and professor|suppressfields=education position held}}
Hermann Hunger (born 1942) is an Austrian Assyriologist, professor emeritus of Assyriology at the University of Vienna,{{cite book|title=The Babylonian Astronomical Compendium MUL.APIN|series=Scientific Writings from the Ancient and Medieval World|author1=Hermann Hunger|author2=John Steele|publisher=Routledge|year=2018|isbn=9781351686815|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z7JjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP2|pages=2}} from which he retired in 2007.{{Cite web |url=http://www.oeaw.ac.at/oeaw_servlet/e_PersonenDetailsGeneric?id=11132 |title=Entry at Austrian Academy of Sciences |access-date=2010-09-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110105144122/http://www.oeaw.ac.at/oeaw_servlet/e_PersonenDetailsGeneric?id=11132 |archive-date=2011-01-05 |url-status=dead }} He has been recognized for his work on Babylonian astronomy and celestial omens.[http://members.westnet.com.au/Gary-David-Thompson/page9i.html "Biographies of Modern Historians of Ancient Occidental Astral Sciences"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402090325/http://members.westnet.com.au/Gary-David-Thompson/page9i.html |date=2015-04-02 }} by Gary D. Thompson (retrieved April 27, 2015){{cite journal|author=Salvo De Meis|title=An Astronomical Analysis of the Occultations Published by Hermann Hunger|journal=Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes|volume=97|series=Festschrift für Hermann Hunger zum 65. Geburtstag gewidmet von seinen Freunden, Kollegen und Schülern (2007)|date=2007|pages=121–136|publisher=Department of Oriental Studies, University of Vienna|jstor=23861411}}
Biography
Hermann Hunger is son of the Byzantinist Herbert Hunger.
= Education =
Hunger studied oriental studies at the University of Vienna after graduating in 1960. In 1963/64 he studied Assyriology and Arabic at the University of Heidelberg and from 1964 to 1966 at the University of Münster, where he received his doctorate in Assyriology and Semitic philology (Babylonian and Assyrian colophones) in 1966 under the tutelage of Wolfram von Soden.
= Academic work =
From 1967 to 1970 he was an epigraphist member at the German Archaeological Institute in Baghdad. From 1970 to 1973 he was Research Associate at the University of Chicago and then until 1976 assistant at the Institute for Oriental Studies at the University of Vienna, where he completed his habilitation. From 1976 to 1978 he was associate professor at the University of Chicago Oriental Institute and from 1978 he was Associate Professor of Assyriology at the University of Vienna, where he retired in 2007.
He is considered one of the leading authorities on Babylonian astronomy history, where he worked early with Otto Neugebauer and Abraham Sachs, and later with David Pingree. He was collaborator in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary.
Hunger is a member of the American Philosophical Society{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Hermann+Hunger&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2021-12-16|website=search.amphilsoc.org}} and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, of which he is chairman of the Commission for the History of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Medicine and the Mycenaean Commission. In 2010 he became an honorary member of the American Oriental Society. Hunger is co-editor of the Archiv für Orientforschung.
== Halley's Comet ==
File:Cuneiform tablet recording observation of Halley's Comet.JPG on a clay tablet between 22 and 28 September 164 BCE, Babylon, Iraq. British Museum.[https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=327183&partid=1&IdNum=41462 Entry at the British Museum Collection Database.]]]
Hunger translated a cuneiform tablet from the Babylonian astronomical diaries that describes the appearance of Halley's Comet in 163 BCE.{{Cite book|author=G. Kronk|title=Cometography, vol.1 |publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1999|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Umxbb68tmZMC&pg=PA8|isbn= 978-0-521-58504-0|page=14}}
Published works
- {{cite book|title=Halley's comet in history|first1=Hermann |last1=Hunger |first2=F. Richard |last2=Stephenson|first3=C. B. F. |last3= Walker|author4=British Museum |publisher=London: Published for the Trustees of the British Museum by British Museum Publications |year=1985 |oclc=15426334}}
- {{cite book|title=Astronomical diaries and related texts from Babylonia Vol. 1 Diaries from 652 B.C. to 262 B.C. [Texts] |first2=Abraham |last2=Sachs |first1=Hermann |last1=Hunger |author-mask1=7 |publisher=Wien Verl. der Österr. Akad. der Wiss |year=1988 |series=Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften; Philosophisch-Historische Klasse; Denkschriften |oclc=832954401}}
- {{cite book|title=Astral sciences in Mesopotamia |first1=Hermann |last1=Hunger |author-mask1=7 |first2=David Edwin |last2=Pingree |publisher=Leiden Boston Köln Brill |year=1999 |series=Handbook of Oriental Studies / 1, Sect. 1, Der Nahe und der Mittlere Osten |volume=44 |oclc=260090632}}
- {{cite book|title=Astronomical diaries and related texts from Babylonia|first2=Abraham |last2=Sachs |first1=Hermann |last1=Hunger |author-mask1=7 |publisher=Wien : Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften |year=2014 |series=Denkschriften (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse), 195., 210., 247., 299., 346., 466. Bd. |oclc=37770918}}{{Cite web |url=http://members.westnet.com.au/Gary-David-Thompson/page11-44.html |title=History of Constellation and Star Names |access-date=2010-09-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927213454/http://members.westnet.com.au/Gary-David-Thompson/page11-44.html |archive-date=2011-09-27 |url-status=dead }}
References
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Category:Austrian Assyriologists
Category:Austrian orientalists
Category:20th-century Austrian historians
Category:Academic staff of the University of Vienna
Category:Austrian people of German descent
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