The Aristotle annotations of Ibn Rušd or Averroes (1126–1198) form a total of the Arabic reception of the Greek philosophy and from the Late Antiquity. As such, they have had a formative influence on the respective discourses of knowledge, especially in their Latin and Hebrew translations over the centuries. The project deals with an yet unexplored part of Ibn Rušd’s natural philosophy, which at…
The systematic research into the Ethiopian manuscript culture is the aim of the long-term project “Die Schriftkultur des christlichen Äthiopiens und Eritreas: Eine multimediale Forschungsumgebung” (“Beta maṣāḥǝft: Manuscripts of Ethiopia and Eritrea”). Ethiopia and Eritrea are situated, from the perspective of cultural history, both at the periphery of the so-called Christian Orient and in the…
The Coptic-Sahidic Bible is one of the most important literary witnesses of Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean. The Coptic Old Testament, which essentially dates back to the 4th century, is one of the earliest and most extensive versions of the Greek Septuagint (LXX). The translation of the Bible into Coptic was source and inspiration for the entire Coptic-Christian literature of Egypt. In…
Robert and Clara Schumann: The great pair of musicians of German romanticism has left a lasting impression on the cultural history of the 19th century. The contacts to almost all the important musicians of the time, but also to poets and painters, to publishers, to friends, and family members are reflected in an extensive correspondence, about which Robert Schumann kept meticulous books. As a…
The decrees of the Frankish rulers are known as capitularies because of their subdivision into chapters (lat. capitula). They are amongst the most important sources for the history of the Frankish kingdoms. They are instructions similar to laws, ordinances or provisions, regulating political, military, ecclesiastical, social, economic and cultural matters.
The aim of the project of the Saxon Academy of Sciences “Europäische Traditionen - Enzyklopädie jüdischer Kulturen” is the development and conceptual penetration of Jewish life worlds in Europe from the early modern period to the middle of the 20th century. It is based on the “Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture”. Completed in 2017, the work, which contains around 800 articles in seven…
Written sources are – like art and buildings – integral parts of the cultural heritage, whose preservation, indexing and provision are central social duties. The knowledge of the past is principally based on texts, that more or less accidentally escaped destruction. These records preserve the knowledge, the faith, the tales, the visions and dreams of the people. They give testimony of past…
The “Neue Johannes Brahms Gesamtausgabe” brings forward Johannes Brahms’ compositional oeuvre in a historical-critical edition. Included are alternative versions, that remained unpublished by the composer, as well as adaptations by the composer of his own and external works. The goal of the edition is the reproduction of authentic texts, which are relieved from typing-, copying, and engraving…
The „Katalog der deutschsprachigen illustrierten Handschriften des Mittelalters", KdiH, (Catalogue of German-Language Illustrated Medieval Manuscripts) provides a basis for the text-image-research in the German lands. It focuses on the specific interplay and multi-facetted interdependencies of text and image. Art historians and textual scholars of German vernacular texts work hand in hand,…
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) is said to be the last polymath. This is reflected by his diverse and mostly unpublished work. Until today, there is no complete edition which forced researchers to rely on deficient partial editions from the 19th century. The project aims at a complete edition of G. W. Leibniz’ writings and of his letters. The handwritten literary remains are to a large…
Texts from the New Testament are preserved in their Greek original language in approx. 5500 manuscripts. It can be assumed that actually no copy is identical with another. Thus, the most important task of the text research of the New Testament is the reconstruction of the text form, which was the starting point for the transmission.
So far, the science had to use “Große Ausgaben” (big editions)…
In the course of the Middle Ages, papal deeds developed into an important medium of communication and are therefore of particular historical interest. Scientists from all over the world have been working with these writings for more than 100 years. The research is made possible by a project of the Göttingen Academy, which began in 1896 and has been supported by the Pius Foundation since 1931.…
The research project “Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexikon zu den Texten vom Toten Meer - Qumran-Lexikon” is one of the most important manuscript finds of the 20th century. Between 1947 and 1956 remains of about 1000 scrolls were discovered in caves near the ruined settlement of Chirbet Qumran on the western shore of the Dead Sea, mainly in Hebrew and Aramaic languages. The manuscripts date from…
The research project “Runische Schriftlichkeit in den germanischen Sprachen / Runic Writing in the Germanic Languages (RuneS)” investigates the oldest writing system in the Germanic languages, the runic script. As a means of communication this script was used in different variants in large regions of Europe (with centres in what is now Germany and the Netherlands, in Great Britain and…
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854) is with Fichte and Hegel one of the most important representatives of German Idealism. The Historical-Critical Edition of Schelling’s Works presents Schelling’s works, his posthumous papers, transcripts and letters in three series (I: published works, II: unpublished works and notes, III: Letters from and to Schelling). The edited texts are being…
Human evolution is a story of expansions. During the last two million years the genus Homo spread from Africa into Asia and Europe in several waves of migration. New species developed and old groups became extinct (range expansions). As early as three million years ago, hominins had established new ways of dealing with their specific environment through culture. Stone tools produced with the help…
The staff of the project “Turfanforschung” edits central Iranian and old Turkic texts from the Turfanian text corpus (Turfansammlung). The texts of the “Turfansammlung” originated from the Central Asian oases along the silk road and date from the 7th to the 14th century CE. In the year 1902, the former Prussian Academy of Sciences received a considerable amount of texts from an expedition to East…
Uwe Johnson (1934-1984) is one of the most important authors of German in the era of two-state identity. His novels tell of German history in a context far beyond Germany. With his essays and articles, Johnson developed the position of a “public intellectual”. His highly literary correspondence is on an equal footing with the literary work, commenting critically on post-war history in an…