Ludwig Keimer (1892-1957) in his working room

View into the Institute's archive

 

Since 1957 the German Archaeological Institute Cairo possesses besides the library also the scholarly estate of Ludwig Keimer (1892-1957) which is stored en bloc in the Keimer-Archive. Accessible through a card catalogue and an internal database, the archive contains:

• Keimers own publications (more than 200 items)
• approximately 550 books dealing with natural sciences, especially zoology, botany, geology and anthropology as well as medical-pharmaceutical literature
• approximately 300 publications of Max Meyerhof (1874-1945)
• Keimers extensive reference books, the "Konvolute"

Already back in 1959, Erik Hornung who was then one of the Institute's research associates, took a first look at the reference works. Heinz Herzer compiled a still unpublished bibliography of Keimers works and the anthropologist Rudolf Herzog was mainly engaged with the material about the Bisharin people. In 1966 Gisela Kircher, a temporary research associate for Islamic studies, started a new revision and published her results in the Institute's annual MDAIK 25, 1969, pp. 33-48 [PDF, 2.34 MB] under the title "Zum Keimer-Nachlaß im DAI Kairo".
She organized the entire material into 176 big sized wooden cases, the so called "Konvolute”, and prepared tables of contents. These "convolutes” include bibliographical notes of Keimer, handwritten manuscripts of articles, excerpts, illustrations, drawings and photographs as well as many newspaper cuttings of Egyptian and foreign press and related correspondence.

Furthermore, there are some unpublished manuscripts of Keimer and other persons which are currently being prepared for publication:

• Tagebuch einer Nubienreise (Konvolut 138)
  Fragmentary diary of a Nubian tour of Heinrich Schäfer (1868-1957) which he undertook in March/April 1900 together with colleagues (submitted for publication in MDAIK 2009)
• Tagebuch Henry Westcar (Konvolut 139)
  Diary of his tour in 1823/24 with the title "A journal of a tour made through Egypt, Upper and Lower Nubia on the Nile"
• Tagebuch Max Meyerhof (Keimer-Mey 290)
  Journey through Egypt of Max Meyerhof and his cousin Otto Meyerhof from November 1900 until April 1901
• Biography of Ludwig Keimer

Further reading

• I. Lehnert, Was Bücher erzählen: Die Bibliothek des Instituts und die Schätze des Ludwig Keimer, in: G. Dreyer/D. Polz (Eds.), Begegnung mit der Vergangenheit. 100 Jahre in Ägypten, 2007, S. 16-24
• I. Lehnert, "Vom heiligen Feuer wissenschaftlicher Neugierde durchglüht": Zum 50. Todestag des Ägyptologen Ludwig Keimer (1892-1957), in: Antike Welt 38/6, 2007, S. 60-62

Adress

Cairo Department
31, Abu el-Feda
11211  Kairo-Zamalek
Tel.: +20-(0)2-2735-1460, -2735-2321
Fax: +20-(0)2-2737-0770
E-Mail: bibliothek@kairo.dainst.org