Joint Research Project with Heidelberg Egyptologist
28. Januar 2015
Belgian scholar receives Anneliese Maier Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
Photo: Université de Liège
Michel Houet
Belgian Egyptologist Prof. Dr. Jean Winand has been selected to receive the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s Anneliese Maier Research Award endowed with 250,000 euros. This distinction provides the funding for a joint research venture with Prof. Dr. Joachim Quack of Heidelberg University’s Institute for Egyptology. The objective of the venture is to create a modern dictionary of Egyptian. “I am very happy that more effective international cooperation on one of the most important and essential projects in Egyptology has been made possible by this award,” says Prof. Quack, who will be acting as host to the Belgian scholar for the duration of his stay in Germany. The Humboldt Foundation will support the joint research venture for up to five years.
Jean Winand is one of the world’s leading experts on the Egyptian language and holds professorships at the University of Liège and the University of Brussels (both in Belgium). His work focuses on text analysis and the lexicography of ancient Egyptian language and script. Drawing upon procedures devised by computational linguistics, he started his “Ramses” project in 2006. It set out to compile a database of texts covering the later stages of Egyptian language history and spelled the advent of modern linguistic methodologies in Egyptology. Professor Winand, the renowned co-author of a middle Egyptian grammar, is also highly regarded for his work on regional language varieties and the coding of hieroglyphs. He will be joining forces with Professor Quack to collate the insights deriving from his “Ramses” project with research projects from Germany. The ultimate aim is the creation of a comprehensive and modern dictionary of Egyptian.
The Anneliese Maier Research Award is granted annually to outstanding non-German scholars from all sectors of the humanities and social sciences. The prize comes with an endowment of 250,000 euros with which the recipients can finance joint research ventures with German colleagues over a period of five years. Potential awardees are nominated by cooperation partners working at German universities and research institutions. The award is financed by the German Ministry of Education and Research and named after German philosopher and science historian Anneliese Maier (1905 to 1971).
