Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt
Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt | |
---|---|
Born | Danzig | September 16, 1685
Died | March 25, 1735 | (aged 49)
Nationality | German |
Occupation | Physician |
Known for | Exploring Siberia |
Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt (Russian: Да́ниэль Го́тлиб Ме́ссершмидт; September 16, 1685 – March 25, 1735) was a German physician, naturalist and geographer and among the first to conduct a scientific exploration of Siberia, which led to the unearthing of the first fossil mammoth.
Life and travels
Messerschmidt was born in
Messerschmidt set out from Moscow on September 5, 1719, through Nizhny Novgorod, Khlynov, Solikamsk, Turinsk, Tyumen, Tobolsk, Tomsk, Kuznetsk, Abakan, Krasnoyarsk, Achinsk, the Sayan Mountains, Mangazeya, the Lower Tunguska, Irkutsk, Nerchinsky Zavod and back. This was the first travel by a naturalist in this terra incognita, which came to last nearly eight years. He made numerous observations related to ethnology, zoology and botany and also excavated the first known fossil mammoth remains. Messerschmidt used two simple utensils for collecting data and artefacts, written diary notes and boxes, establishing a tradition for naturalist exploration to last a century.[1] In Tobolsk, Messerschmidt met the Swedish lieutenant colonel Philip Johan von Strahlenberg, who had been taken prisoner at the Battle of Poltava and exiled to Siberia.[2]
Strahlenberg accompanied Messerschmidt during several expeditions and later published some of Messerschmidt's observations.
Messerschmidt's notes and collections were, to the degree they were preserved, kept at the Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg. Pallas cited extracts of his journey log in his Neue nordischen Beyträge. Only much later were his full journal and maps published.[5] In his travel journal with 202 sheets bound into a leather folio, he described 149 minerals, 1290 plants of which 359 were found only in Russia, and more than 260 vertebrates.[4] Many of the notes were made by his assistants in Russian, while he wrote in German. A statue is erected in his memory in Khanty-Mansiysk.[2]
Literature
- Han F. Vermeulen: 'Enlightenment and Pietism. D. G. Messerschmidt and the Early Exploration of Siberia'. (=Ch.3). In: Han F. Vermeulen: Before Boas. The Genesis of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German Enlightenment. Lincoln & London, University of Nebraska Press, 2016. ISBN 978-0-8032-5542-5