This blog post also serves as an opportunity for me to introduce myself!  My name is Leila Hyde and I am from a little town on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.  I earned my bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University - Hawaii in History and then pursued a master’s degree at Indiana University in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures with a focus in Egyptology.  I arrived in Göttingen in May to begin working as a Trainee with the project.

July 7th, 2023 allowed for the celebration of the life and work of Dr. Jürgen Horn.  As a newcomer to the Academy and the city of Göttingen, I was pleased to become acquainted with some of the individuals in attendance.  The presentations vividly reminded those in attendance of Jürgen Horn’s widespread scholarly interests, the numerous contributions he made to academia as well as the good friend he was to those he worked with. After a welcoming address by Heike Behlmer introducing Jürgen Horn as teacher, colleague, and friend, some special aspects of Horn’s research were highlighted. Frank Feder recalled their common work during the former Halle University project “Koptische Septuaginta” (1994-1999) and the important contribution which Jürgen Horn made to the reconstruction and edition of the Coptic Old Testament.

Sebastian Richter focused on Horn’s interest in the history of scholarship on Ancient Egypt and singled out the outstanding but unpublished introduction to a planned volume on Wilhelm von Humboldt’s (1767-1835) essay “Ueber die coptische Sprache”. The Prussian diplomat and statesman, brother of the famous scientist and explorer Alexander, had a vivid interest in the Egyptian language. Matthias Müller reminded the audience of Jürgen Horn’s research on documentary sources and suggested the location of a newly discovered monastery in Western Thebes. Finally, the “Märtyrerhelden” presented by Gerald Moers not only connected the cult of the Christian martyrs in Late Antique Egypt with today’s, but also shed light on this central topic in Jürgen Horn’s research, the martyr accounts, on which he wrote his dissertation. 

Just before Anne Boud’hors gave her impressive evening lecture “Die Macht Gottes und die Milde des Propheten”, on the policy of quoting the books of the prophets in Coptic Literature, Diliana Atanassova and Frank Feder surprised Heike Behlmer with her birthday present, a copy of her Festschrift entitled: Pharaonen, Mönche und Gelehrte, comprising more than 1000 pages with articles by 58 contributors. 

Following the talks and presentation of the Festschrift, a delicious dinner was served which was prepared by many of the members of the Project.  This allowed many people to continue to talk with old friends and to make new acquaintances facilitating a good environment for networking and sharing ideas.