Ernst Förstemann

Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann (Danzig, 18 September 1822 – Charlottenburg, 4 November 1906) was a German historian, mathematician, doctor of linguistics, librarian, and director of the Saxon State Library in Dresden. He is known as a founder of onomastics and folk etymology studies in Germany, and also for his seminal contributions made in the early years of Mayanist research, towards the decipherment and understanding of calendrical elements in the pre-Columbian Maya script. He was the first European to understand and interpret the Maya number system, their use of the “zero,” and their calendar system.

Biography Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann was born in Danzig as the son of the mathematician Wilhelm August Förstemann. His family was originally from Nordhausen. From 1831 to 1840 he was educated at the local grammar school, where his father was a Mathematics schoolmaster. In 1840, Förstemann matriculated in Comparative linguistics at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1841, he moved to Halle (Saale), where he continued his studies at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg.

When Förstemann was offered a position as librarian at the Fürst zu Stolberg-Wernigerodesche Bibliothek in 1851, he gave up his position at Danzig and went to Wernigerode. Förstemann reorganized the library and began to work on a new catalogue. In the following years, Förstemann prepared an edition of the Maya manuscript as well as several treatises on it. Über die Gräflich Stolbergische Bibliothek zu Wernigerode, 1866 Mitteilungen der königlichen öffentlichen Bibliothek zu Dresden, 1866 ff. Geschichte des deutschen Sprachstammes, 2 vols. 1874/75 (Reissued 1966; called by some his most important work) Graf Christian Ernst zu Stolberg-Wernigerode, Hannover 1886. Zur Entzifferung der Mayahandschriften, 7 vols. 1887/98 Aus dem alten Danzig, 1820-40, 1900 Zur Geschichte der Bücher-Sammlungen in der Grafschaft Wernigerode bis zum Dreißigjährigen Kriege, insbesondere der Sammlung Graf Wolfgang Ernst zu Stolberg (angelegt von etwa 1569–1606)., undated MS.