Jan Assmann

Jan Assmann (1938–2024) was an Egyptologist and scholar of religion and culture. From 1976 to 2003, he was Professor of Egyptology at Heidelberg University; he later served as an honorary professor of cultural studies and the theory of religion at the University of Konstanz. His research focused on ancient Egyptian religion, history, literature and art, as well as cultural memory and monotheism. His best-known works include “Cultural Memory,” “Moses the Egyptian” and “The Magic Flute: Opera and Mystery.” Assmann received numerous honors, including the German Historian Prize (1998), the Thomas Mann Prize (2011) and the Sigmund Freud Prize for Scholarly Prose (2016). In 2018, he and Aleida Assmann jointly received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.