Thomas Barthel facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Thomas Barthel
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 4 January 1923 |
| Died | 3 April 1997 (aged 74) |
| Alma mater | University of Hamburg |
| Era | 1959–1988 |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | University of Tübingen |
Thomas Sylvester Barthel (born January 4, 1923 – died April 3, 1997) was a German expert. He studied different cultures and ancient writing systems. He is most famous for his work on the mysterious rongorongo script from Easter Island. This script has not yet been fully understood.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Barthel grew up in the city of Berlin, Germany. He finished high school in 1940. During World War II, he worked with secret codes for the German army. After the war, he went to university. He studied subjects like folklore (old stories and customs), geography (the study of Earth's features), and prehistory (times before written records). He studied in Berlin, Hamburg, and Leipzig. In 1952, he earned his doctorate degree in Hamburg. His main project was about Mayan writing.
Studying Ancient Scripts
From 1953 to 1956, Barthel received a special fellowship to continue his research. In 1957, he became a lecturer in Hamburg. He also visited the University of Chile as a guest researcher. There, he worked with the Institute for Easter Island Studies.
His Work on Rongorongo
Barthel wanted to record the rongorongo script. This is an ancient writing system from Easter Island. He visited many museums that had tablets with this script. He made pencil rubbings of the tablets. These rubbings helped him create the first complete collection of the script. He published this collection in 1958. The book was called Grundlagen zur Entzifferung der Osterinselschrift.
Barthel was the first person to correctly understand a part of the rongorongo texts. He showed that two lines on a tablet called Mamari contained information about a calendar.
Academic Career and Research
In 1959, Barthel became a professor at the University of Tübingen in Germany. He taught about ethnology, which is the study of different cultures. From 1964 to 1988, he was a full professor there. His main research focused on the folklore of the Americas.
He later gave all his rongorongo research notes to a special center. This center is called the CEIPP. It stands for Centre d'Études de l'Îles de Pâques et de la Polynésie. This group continues to check and build on his important work.
Efforts to Decipher Maya Script
Barthel also worked on trying to understand the Maya script. This was the writing system used by the ancient Maya civilization in Mesoamerica. He was one of the first to study "emblem glyphs" in detail. These were special symbols that showed political power and importance.
His ideas about four main emblem glyphs were later expanded by another scholar, Joyce Marcus. Their ideas helped researchers understand how ancient Maya cities were organized. They suggested there were four main capital cities and different levels of importance for other sites.
Debate on Phonetic Approach
Barthel had strong opinions about how to read the Maya script. He believed it did not use sounds (phonetics) like many modern writing systems. He thought it was not a "true" writing system in that way.
He disagreed with a Russian expert named Yuri Knorozov. Knorozov believed the Maya script did use phonetics. At a meeting in 1956, Barthel's criticism made many people doubt Knorozov's ideas. However, later research proved Knorozov's phonetic approach was mostly correct. This approach led to big breakthroughs in understanding Maya writing from the 1970s onwards. Barthel and Knorozov continued to disagree throughout their careers.
Personal Life
Thomas Barthel was married three times. He had four children.
Published Works
Barthel wrote many important books and articles. Here are some of them:
- 1958a. Grundlagen zur Entzifferung der Osterinselschrift. Hamburg : Cram, de Gruyter.
- 1958b. "The 'Talking Boards' of Easter Island." Scientific American, 198:61-68
- 1971. Pre-contact Writing in Oceania. In: Current Trends in Linguistics 8:1165-1186. Den Haag, Paris: Mouton.
- 1978. The Eighth Land: The Polynesian Discovery & Settlement of Easter Island. Honolulu: the University Press of Hawaii.
- 1990. "Wege durch die Nacht (Rongorongo-Studien auf dem Santiagostab)", in Esen-Baur, Heide-Margaret (ed.), State and Perspectives of Scientific Research in Easter Island Culture. Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg 125. Frankfurt am Mein: Senckenbergische Naturforschende Gesellschaft, 73–112. ISBN: 3-510-61140-3
See also
In Spanish: Thomas S. Barthel para niños
