Winfried Orthmann


Winfried Orthmann is a German archaeologist specialized on Near East regions.

Life

Winfried Orthmann studied the ancient history of the Middle East, classical archaeology and Assyriology from 1954 to 1961 at universities in Munich, Berlin and Ankara. He received his doctoral degree in 1961 promovierte at the Free University of Berlin. After his studies, he was an instructor at the German Archaeological Institute in Istanbul. From 1966 to 1969 he received a scholarship from the German Research Foundation to support his habilitation, which took place in 1969 at Saarland University with his publication of Untersuchungen zur späthethitischen Kunst. In 1971 his was appointed as a scientific advisor and professor at Saarland University, where he remained from 1971 to 1994 as a professor for Near Eastern archaeology. From 1994 to 2000 Orthmann was a professor and dean for art, classical and ancient studies at Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. He became a professor emeritus at the end of the summer semester in 2000 and remains professionally active to this day. His research focus includes Syrian archaeology from the third to first century BCE and the archaeology of the southern Caucasus region in the early and middle Bronze Age.

Work and projects

Travels in near eastern countries and excavation campaigns in Ilica and in Mumbaqat since 1973-1974 supported his work as a specialist in archaeology, particularly in the area of Hittite culture.
After the death of Anton Moortgat in 1977, who was a professor of near eastern archaeology at the Free University of Berlin, Orthmann continued the excavations of the ancient settlement at Tell Chuera from 1982 to 1983 together with Ursula Moortgat-Correns of Berlin. As of 1986, he assumed sole responsibility for the excavations. The project was relocated to the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg in 1994. During the 1996 campaign, his team excavated parts of a large temple complex in the southeastern part of the city and parts of a palace in the west of the city in strata dated to the third millennium BCE. A larger building complex from the middle Assyrian period was also excavated. Until 1997 Orthmann was also responsible for work in the Alazani valley in eastern Georgia on behalf of the German Research Foundation with the objective of completely excavating a large grave mound in the Euphrates Valley from 1975 to 1986.
He is a full member of the German Archaeological Institute.

Publications