Georg Christian Thilenius

Place: Bad Soden (Taunus)

Born: 1868

Death: 1937

Biography:

Georg Christian Thilenius was a German physician and anthropologist. He studied medicine in Bonn and Berlin, and in 1896 was habilitated as an anatomist at the University of Strasbourg. Afterwards he participated in research trips to Tunisia and the South Pacific. In 1900 he became a professor of anthropology and ethnology at the University of Breslau, and several years later (1904) was appointed director of the Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg (Museum of Ethnology, Hamburg). As director of the Hamburg Museum of Ethnography, Thilenius coordinated the 1908-1910 Südsee-Expedition, a scientific expedition to German administered territories in Micronesia and Melanesia. He was a member of the Kolonialinstitut in Hamburg, an institute where he served as chairman from 1908 to 1910. He also worked as a lecturer at the institute, which was the predecessor of Hamburg University.