Ritterling, Emil

Museum director, historian

born: 20.12.1861 in Leipzig

died: 07.02.1928 in Wiesbaden

After completing his studies in classical philology and history in Bonn and Leipzig, Ritterling initially worked as an assistant, then from 1888-91 as an assistant at the Royal Library in Berlin.

After a stay in a sanatorium, he settled in Wiesbaden as a private scholar, where Carl August von Cohausen, the then director of the Museum of Nassau Antiquities, was soon able to interest him in the intensive Limes research being carried out at the time and entrusted him with the investigation of the forts at Nieberbieber and Wiesbaden. In 1893/94, Ritterling worked as secretary for the Verein für Nassauische Altertumskunde und Geschichtsforschung, and in 1898, at the request of the association, he reluctantly took over the management of the museum, in which three previously independent collections had been brought together since 1900. Appointed director of the Roman-Germanic Commission in Frankfurt am Main, he resigned from his post on November 1, 1911 just three years later, but continued to manage the museum on an interim basis in place of Friedrich Koepp, who had been called up in the meantime. At the same time, he oversaw the reorganization of the display collection.

His doctorate (1885) on the subject of "De Legione Romanorum X Gemina" shows Ritterling's great interest in epigraphy. From 1895 onwards, he investigated the Wiesbaden forts on the Heidenberg, where he was able to prove the existence of three previously unknown early earth deposits. He also observed the construction work at the breakthrough from Schwalbacher Straße to Mauritiusplatz. The excavations of the thermal baths on the Adlerterrain in Wiesbaden in 1902 and the Hofheim earth fort in 1913 are also among Ritterling's achievements. His great esteem among colleagues was reflected in numerous honorary memberships, such as the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 1908.