Julius Euting


Julius Euting was a German Orientalist.

Life

Director of the National and University Library of Strasbourg, he completed his first studies at the Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium in Stuttgart and at the local seminary. He then studied Theology and Oriental Languages in Tübingen from 1857 to 1861.
Starting in 1867, he made numerous trips to Near and Middle East, especially Syria and Arabia. He worked on the Quran and published numerous bibliographic catalogs. He also published a tourist work on Strasbourg in 1903. He feigned a conversion to Islam, and, just like his colleague Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, adopted an Arabic name, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb.
From 1876 to 1912 he was President of the Vogesenclub, on which he wrote a history.
This association paid homage to him by dedicating the Tower overlooking the Climont to his name.

Canaanite and Aramaic epigraphy

Euting made a significant contribution to the study of Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions, particularly those in Phoenician and Punic, becoming the most cited name in the literature of Semitic epigraphy between c. 1875 and 1920. His "Script Tables" became widely renowned among Semitic scholars, and his copy of the Siloam inscription printed at the front of the Gesenius-Kautzsch Hebrew Grammar, has become familiar to generations of scholars in the field.
In addition to his own research, Euting collaborated with other scholars, often publishing articles on inscriptions provided by them or discovered in public collections, including the National Academic Library. Among his notable contributions was the publications of the Dream ostracon and the Strasbourg Aramaic papyrus, amongst the first known of the Elephantine papyri and ostraca, the Wilmanns Neopunic inscriptions, the Hadrumetum Punic inscriptions, the Tayma stones, the Tamassos bilinguals the Idalion Temple inscriptions, and the 38 Nabataean script funerary inscriptions from Hegra. Euting's publications were widely referenced in the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, especially in relation to inscriptions numbered 180-3251, and his "Sammlung der carthagischen Inschriften" and "Punische Steine" are considered essential references in the field.
Mark Lidzbarski dedicated his seminal work, the "Handbuch" to both Euting and Theodor Nöldeke.

Publications

Epigraphy

The notebooks from Euting's [Middle Eastern travels are held in the University Library of Tübingen:
DateLocationNotebooks
1869Tunis and Carthage1
1870Turkey2
1883-84Syria and Arabia18-23
1889Egypt, Sinai, Palestine, Lebanon4-6
1889-90Syria and southern Turkey7-10
1898Transjordan 11-13
1903Palestine, Transjordan, Egypt14-15
1905Algiers, Tunis16-17

Other

  • Beschreibung der Stadt Strassburg und des Munsters, Strasbourg, 1881.