Max von Oppenheim

German lawyer, diplomat, ancient historian, and archaeologist (1860–1946)

Baron Max von Oppenheim (15 July 1860 – 17 November 1946) was a German lawyer, diplomat, ancient historian, and archaeologist. He was a member of the Oppenheim banking dynasty. Abandoning his career in diplomacy, he discovered the site of Tell Halaf in 1899 and conducted excavations there in 1911–13 and again in 1927–29. Bringing many of his finds to Berlin, he exhibited them in a private museum (The Tell Halaf Museum) in 1931. Max grew up as one of five siblings and from an early age he was exposed to art, as his father was an avid collector and patron of the arts. Although his father wanted him to work in the banking house of Sal. Oppenheim, Max had other ideas. According to his unpublished memoirs, it was a Christmas gift of The Thousand and One Nights that first gave rise to his interest in the East. Max attended school at Cologne from 1866 to 1879, finishing with the Abitur at the Apostel Gymnasium. He then followed the wish of his father and began to study law at the University of Strasbourg. However, rather than study, he spent most of time at the Studentenverbindung "Corps Palatia Guestphalia Freiburg". He then transferred to Berlin University but his lack of academic progress caused his father to recall him to Cologne where he finished his 1. Staatsexamen and the doctoral exam in 1883. During his time as Referendar he learned Arabic and began to collect Oriental art. He finished his Referendariat in 1891 by passing the exam as Assessor. due to the Jewish background of his father. On one of several trips he made while stationed at Cairo, in 1899 Oppenheim travelled via Aleppo to Damascus and northern Mesopotamia on behalf of Deutsche Bank, working on establishing a route for the Baghdad Railway. On 19 November, he discovered the archaeological site of Tell Halaf, following up on tales told to him by local villagers of stone idols buried beneath the sand. Within three days, several significant pieces of statuary were uncovered, including the so called "Sitting Goddess". A test pit uncovered the entrance to the "Western Palace". Since he had no legal permit to excavate, Oppenheim had the statues he found reburied and moved on. Deutsche Bank was not satisfied with his work on the railway and he was subsequently dismissed as an advisor. He continued to work in Cairo as a diplomat until 1910 when he was dismissed from the diplomatic service with the rank of Ministerresident on 1 November. Oppenheim planned a digging campaign that began on 5 August 1911. Substantial equipment was imported, including a small steam train. The costs totaled around 750,000 Mark and were covered by von Oppenheim's father. On arrival, the archaeologists discovered that since 1899 locals had uncovered some of the findings and heavily damaged them in part out of superstition, in part to gain valuable building material. During the excavations Oppenheim found the ruins of the Aramaean town of Guzana (or Gozan), which flourished at the turn of the 2nd/1st millennium BC. Significant finds included the large statues and reliefs of the so called "Western Palace" built by King Kapara, as well as a cult room and tombs. After a revolt, the Aramaean palace had been destroyed and Guzana became an Assyrian province. Some of the statuary was found reused in buildings from the Hellenistic period. In addition, they discovered Neolithic pottery from around 6,000 to 5,000 BC of a type which became known as Halaf culture after the site where it was first found. At the time, this was the oldest painted pottery ever found (together with those discovered at Samarra by Herzfeld). In 1913, Oppenheim also discovered the reliefs at the Djebelet el Beda before deciding to return temporarily to Germany. Oppenheim was credited with being the one who came up with the dual approach to fighting the British and French: through regular troops and by encouraging uprisings by the masses. Some among the Arabs reportedly referred to Oppenheim as Abu Jihad ("Father of Holy War"). In 1917, Oppenheim returned to Berlin and began to work on the publication of his excavation results. A bombing raid in 1943 also destroyed Oppenheim's apartment in Berlin and with it much of his library and art collection. He then moved to Dresden, where he lived through the firebombing of February 1945. Having lost virtually all his possessions, Oppenheim moved to in Bavaria, where he stayed with his sister. He died on 15 November 1946 at the age of 86, in Landshut, and is buried there.

Stored in the cellars of the Pergamon Museum during the period of communist rule under the GDR, the remains were left untouched. After reunification, the Masterplan Museumsinsel of 1999 brought up the idea of having the Western Palace front from Tell Halaf restored. With financial support from Sal. Oppenheim and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft the Vorderasiatisches Museum engaged in its largest scale restoration project since the reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate. From 2001 to 2010, more than 30 sculptures were reconstructed out of around 27,000 fragments. They were exhibited at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin in 2011 and at the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn in 2014. The latter exhibition focused not just on the archaeological finds but also on the person of Max von Oppenheim, who has been called "the last of the great amateur archaeological explorers of the Near East". When the reconstruction of the Museumsinsel is completed around 2025, the Western Palace façade will be the entrance to the new Vorderasiatisches Museum.