WEIDNER, ERNST

(1891–1976)

German Assyriologist. He studied in Leipzig where he wrote his dissertation on Babylonian astronomy, a subject that remained a lifelong interest. In 1923 he founded a scholarly journal, later known as the Archiv fur Orientforschung, which he edited until his death in 1976. In 1943 he obtained a position at the Karl Franzens University in Graz, Austria, having written a study on Assyrian reliefs (Die Reliefs der assyrischen Konige. Teil 1: Die Reliefs in England,in der Vatikanstadt und in Italien, 1942). He continued to work on astronomical tablets but also published editions of Assyrian royal inscriptions (Die Inschriften Tukulti-Ninurtas I. und seiner Nachfolger, 1959) and cuneiform texts from the Hittite capital, Hattusa (Boghazkoy).