Bedřich Hrozný | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1879-05-06)6 May 1879 |
| Died | 12 December 1952(1952-12-12) (aged 73) |
| Other names | Friedrich Hrozny |
| Known for | Contribution to the decipherment ofHittite |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Orientalist |
| Main interests | Hittitology |
| Signature | |
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Bedřich Hrozný (Czech pronunciation:[ˈbɛdr̝ɪxˈɦrozniː]ⓘ; 6 May 1879 – 12 December 1952), also known asFriedrich Hrozny,[1] was aCzechorientalist andlinguist. He contributed to the decipherment of the ancientHittite language, identified it as anIndo-European language, and laid the groundwork for the development ofHittitology.
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Hrozný was born inLysá nad Labem,Bohemia,Austria-Hungary. In the town ofKolín he learnedHebrew andArabic. At theUniversity of Vienna, he studiedAkkadian,Aramaic,Ethiopian,Sumerian andSanskrit, as well as thecuneiform used inAsia Minor,Mesopotamia andPersia. He also studied orientalism atHumboldt University of Berlin.
In 1905, following excavations in Palestine, he became professor at theUniversity of Vienna.
In 1906, atHattusa (modern Boğazkale, about 200 km east ofAnkara) aGerman expedition found the archives of theHittite kings in cuneiform, but in an unknown language. While on active duty in the Austro-Hungarian army duringWorld War I, Hrozný published in 1917 a description of the language showing that it belonged to the Indo-European family.[2]
In 1925 Hrozný led a Czechoslovak archaeological team that discovered 1000 cuneiform tablets containing contracts and letters ofAssyrian merchants in the Turkish village ofKültepe, and excavated the nearby ancient Hittite city ofKanesh.
In 1929, Hrozný foundedArchiv Orientální, which became one of the leading journals for Oriental Studies.
Later in his life, he tried to decipher thehieroglyphic script used by the Hittites and scripts used inancient India andCrete, but failed in his effort. From 1919 to 1952, he was a Professor of cuneiform research and ancient Oriental history at theCharles University inPrague. After theGerman occupation of Czechoslovakia he was made rector of theCharles University, holding that post in 1939–1940[3] (all Czech universities were closed by Germans then). In that capacity, he helped some students escape arrest during an incident in 1939, stating to the German officer in charge that the Germans had no legal right to pursue students on the independent university's territory. A stroke in 1944 ended his scientific work.[4]
To solve the mystery of the Hittite language, Bedřich Hrozný focused on a text passage that reads:nu NINDA-an ezzatteni watar-ma ekutteni. It was known at that time that theideogram for NINDA meant bread inSumerian. Hrozný thought that the suffix-an might be the Hittite accusative singular ending. Then, he assumed that the second word,ed-/ezza-, had something to do with the bread and thought that it could be the verbeat. The comparison withLatinedo,Englisheat, andGermanessen led him to infer thatNINDA-an ezzatteni means "you (will) eat bread". In the second sentence, Hrozný was struck by the wordwatar, which recalled Englishwater and GermanWasser. The last word of the second sentence,ekutteni, had thestemeku-, which seemed to resemble the Latinaqua (water). He thus translated the second sentence as "you (will) drink water". Hrozný soon realized that the Hittites were speaking an Indo-European language, which greatly facilitated the decipherment and interpretation of Hittite cuneiform texts. Building upon these insights, he continued his work and was able to publish a preliminary Hittite grammar already in 1917.[5]
