Oppenheim

This is a fictional biography of the German self-taught archaeologist, Max von Oppenheim, who discovered the ruins of the ancient city of Guzana at Tell Halaf in Syria at the dawn of the twentieth century.

The consuming passion for archaeology makes this heir of an ennobled Jewish family of bankers travel the world, fight several refusals to be accepted into the diplomatic service until, well-versed in Arabic and Turkish, he obtained a position as an attaché at the embassy in Cairo. Working in parallel on the Berlin-Baghdad railway project, he discovered the ruins of the ancient Hittite city buried in the sands of Tell Halaf, on the banks of Khabur River.

Resigning from his diplomatic position and dismissed by Deutsche Bank as councilor, Max von Oppenheim dedicates all his energy and family's resources to continue the excavations.

At the culmination of this enormous endeavor Max and his team of dedicated archaeologists unearth the ruins of an entire city founded by the Hittites, conquered by the Assyrians, and eventually inhabited by the Aramaeans, whose king Kapara built the majestic "Bit Hilani" palace.

At the outbreak of the first world war, his memorandum "Denkschrift betreffend die Revolutionierung der islamischen Gebiete unserer Feinde (Memorandum on revolutionizing the Islamic territories of our enemies) earns Max the position as head of the new created German spy agency "Nachrichtenstelle für den Orient" (The News Agency for the East).

After the war, Max Oppenheim returns to Tell Halaf for continuing excavations, but soon loses all his family financial resources as the financial crash of '30s ruined their bank business.

His attempts to sell artifacts to the German state for the famous Pergamon museum failed, and offers to museums in America were no more successful. Finally, Max opens a private museum in a decommissioned industrial warehouse in Charlottenburg, which was visited by personalities of the time such as the archaeologist Max Mallowan with his famous wife Agatha Christie and the renowned Irish playwright Samuel Beckett.

After the Nazis took power in 1933, Oppenheim's Jewish background became a potential threat, but with help of his scholar friends he was able to continue with his scholarly work.

In 1939, he once more traveled to Syria for excavations, coming within the sight of Tell Halaf. However, the French authorities refused to award him a permit to dig and he had to depart.

In 1943, his private museum "Tell Halaf" in the Berlin-Charlottenburg industrial complex was bombed to the ground by the Allies and thus, his entire collection went into nothingness.

He died at the age of 86 in Landshut, leaving behind no children and no wife, but a legacy of passion and determination that made him overcome all the bitter setbacks of life and see his dreams come true. His achievements are comparable only to those of another great amateur archaeologist who discovered Troy, Heinrich Schliemann.