2025/03/28 by Susanne Friedrich · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #History of Science and Natural History #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Linguistics and language evolution
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/00033790.2025.2483296
openalex publication_date 2025/03/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
In 1695 the fossils of a woodland elephant were excavated in Burgtonna (Thuringia). This article deals with the debate between Gotha’s court historiographer Wilhelm Ernst Tentzel (1659–1707), who interpreted the discovery as the remains of an elephant, and the collegium medicum of Gotha, that insisted that it was a lusus naturae. The debate, in which scholars throughout Europe soon became involved, is paradigmatic for the social, professional, epistemological and religious frames that determined what around 1700 one could say and think about the history of the earth and the role humans played in it. While Tentzel, as a specialist in human history, proved that the findings of fossilized exotic animals could not be explained by human intervention and argued for the Deluge as an agent of transport, for some of his correspondents inconsistencies between human history and the history of Nature emerged at this point, and time itself became an issue. The study emphasizes the importance of regional historiography for the understanding of nature as well as the transformation of history of Nature into natural history.