Georg Thilenius

Who was Georg Thilenius?

Georg Christian Thilenius was a German physician and anthropologist who was a native of Soden am Taunus.

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 was appointed director of the Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg, a position he maintained until 1935.

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. Members of the research group included Friedrich Fülleborn, Otto Reche and Wilhelm Müller-Wismar. Over 15,000 objects and artifacts from the South Pacific were brought back to Hamburg, as well as scientific information that eventually numbered to 23 volumes.