Draft:Matthias Wemhoff

‘’‘Matthias Wemhoff’‘’ (born in Münster) is a German medieval archaeologist and director of the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz and Landesarchäologe of Bundesland Berlin.

Work

Wemhoff is known in particular for his exhibition work. In 1999, together with Christoph Stiegemann from the Diocesan Museum Paderborn, he organised the exhibitions ‘’799 - Art and Culture of the Carolingian Period‘’ and in 2006 ‘’Canossa - Shaking the World‘’. This was followed in Berlin by the exhibitions ‘’Germans and Russians - 1000 Years of Art, History and Culture‘’ in 2012 and ‘’The Vikings‘’ in 2014. The latter exhibition was created in collaboration with the Danish National Museum and the British Museum. In 2020, Wemhoff presented the major exhibition ‘’Germanen. An Archaeological Inventory‘’., which was developed in cooperation with the LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn, at the James-Simon-Galerie and the Neues Museum in Berlin.

In 2012, Wemhoff presented a two-part series on famous archaeological sites in Germany in the ZDF programme Terra X. The two episodes were broadcast under the title ‘Deutschlands Supergrabungen’. In August 2014, Wemhoff documented the development of humanity in different parts of the world at the same time in the year zero and year 1000 in the series ‘Time Travel’. In 2016, further episodes (on the years 500 and 1500) were broadcast as a continuation of the series. This was followed in 2017 by further episodes on the years 1000 BC and 1800

Controversies

The acquisition of human skulls from colonial times in Africa by Wemhoff's museum and the research he commissioned into their origins attracted particular public attention. Wemhoff's employment of anthropologist Barbara Teßmann, who has repeatedly attracted attention in the international press for her racist theories, led to fierce criticism from parts of the public. Teßmann's ‘racial’ typologies in particular aroused general revulsion: "If you look at people from the North Sea, for example, they have, long, narrow skulls and long, narrow faces. If you look at people from the Alpine region, their heads are rather round. Black Africans, they have long, narrow skulls in contrast to, say, Chinese - they have broad, short faces.“

Writings (selection)

‘’‘Monographs’‘’

• ‘’Das Damenstift Herford. Die archäologischen Ergebnisse zur Geschichte der Profan- und Sakralbauten seit dem späten 8. Jahrhundert‘’ (= ‘’Denkmalpflege und Forschung in Westfalen.‘’ Vol. 24). 3 volumes. Habelt, Bonn 1993, ISBN 3-7749-2611-5.

• with Claudia Melisch: ‘’Archäologie Berlins. 50 Objekte erzählen 10000 Jahre Geschichte‘’. Elsengold Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-944594-37-8.

• ‘’Archaeology and a complex historical event of the Nazi period - the Berlin sculpture find.‘’ In: Medieval Archaeology in Scandinavia and Beyond. History, trends and tomorrow, ed. Mette Svart Kristiansen, Else Roesdahl and James Graham-Campell, Aarhus 2015, ISBN 978-87-7124-378-9.

• with Michael Malliaris: ‘’The Berlin Palace. History and Archaeology‘’. Elsengold Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-944594-58-3.