author
Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann
1822–1906
A scholar of language and history, he helped shape the study of German names and made important early contributions to the decipherment of the Dresden Maya Codex. His career also led him to the top of one of Germany’s major libraries in Dresden.
1 Audiobook
Commentary on the Maya Manuscript in the Royal Public Library of Dresden
by Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann
About the author
Born in Danzig on September 18, 1822, Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann was a German linguist, historian, librarian, and scholar of names. He studied comparative linguistics in Berlin and Halle, later worked as a teacher, and went on to manage important libraries before becoming director of the Royal Public Library in Dresden, now the Saxon State and University Library.
Förstemann is especially remembered for work that crossed several fields. In German studies, his Altdeutsches Namenbuch became a landmark reference for old German personal and place names, helping establish onomastics as a serious area of research. He also became known far beyond German philology for his studies of the Dresden Codex, where his analysis of Maya calendrical and numerical systems made him an important early figure in Maya decipherment.
He died in Charlottenburg on November 4, 1906. What makes his story stand out is the range of it: he was at once a library leader, a historical linguist, and a patient code-breaker of one of the world’s most fascinating manuscripts.