Heinrich Stönner

Albert Heinrich Stönner (30 May 1872, Bremen, Germany — 13 Dec. 1931) was a German Indologist and ethnologist specializing who studied Vedic scriptures, religious art in Central India and, after staying in Siam and Cambodia from 1907 onwards, literature and art of Ancient Southeast Asia.

After studying chemistry, H. Stönner veered to Orientalism, obtaining his PhD in 1901 from Halle University (after 5 years of studies a Berlin University) with a thesis on the Mantra Brahmana, an important Vedic text.

Stönner joined the Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin-Dahlem (mod. Ethnological Museum) in 1901 and spent the rest of his career and natural life there, becoming an assistant researcher focusing on Central Asian manuscripts recently discovered by a German mission. We do not know in which capacity he started to reside in Bangkok from 1907, collecting several Thai manuscripts he sent to the Museum and studying the Siamese and Pali languages. According to a research paper published in 2017, he attempted to get elected to the council of the Siam Society in 1907, to no avail [Barend Jan Terwiel, “Cultural Goods and Flotsam: Early Thai Manuscripts in Germany and Those Who Collected Them”, Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies 2 – 1, Spring 2017, pp. 82 – 105.]

Some of his photographs taken in Angkor — deemed ‘magnificent’ by George Coedès in BEFEO 1913 — illustrated the book Angkor: Eine Reisen nach den Ruinen von Angkor published by German banker Hugo Suter in 1912. He also went to Java, documenting stone sculptures and stelae. Later, he was Professor at the Berlin Ethnological Museum and, from 1925 to his death in 1931,he served as Kustos (Curator) with the title of Director of the Indian Department at the Museum.

In Orientalisches Archiv [Oriental Archive], the journal edited by Hugo Grothe for German-speaking ethnologists and archaeologists between 1910, we find his work as expert in Southeast Asian art seldom mentioned, as German studies were then focusing on Central and Islamic Asia. For instance:

The Berlin Museum of Ethnology has acquired a collection of Siamese household items that once belonged to a high-ranking Siamese monk. The collection includes an enameled lidded vessel — an art form originally introduced from China but now extinct in Siam — as well as a drinking bowl, a round lidded box for storing small objects, a water pitcher, and other interesting pieces. According to a report by Dr. Stönner, another newly acquired water vessel features an elegantly carved wooden stand, the six feet of which are shaped like snakes. The snakes’ bodies appear to support the upper platform, while their heads arch back from the base.” [Band 1, p. 45]

Select Publications

[based on H. Stönner’s notice in Persons of Indian Studies by Prof. Dr. Klaus Karttunen / भारतीय अध्ययन से संबद्ध व्यक्तिn]

[doctoral dissertation] Das Mantra-Brāhmaṇa. 1. Prapāṭhaka. Sanskrit und deutsch, mit Auszügen von Kommentaren. 35+53 p. Gütersloh 1901.
“Zentralasiatische Sanskrittexte in Brāhmīschrift aus Idikutšari. 1. Dharmaśarīrasūtra”, SbBeAW 1904:2, 1282 – 1290; “id. 2. Śikṣāsamuccaya”, ibid. 1310 – 1313.
“Ein brahmanisches Weltsystem: Beschreibung eines im Kgl. Museum für Völkerkunde zu Berlin befindlichen Bildes”, Baessler-Archiv 1, 1911, 119 – 134.
Catalogue des sculptures cames et khmères du Musée royal d’ethnographie à Berlin. Berlin, 1912.
[photographs in] Hugo Suter, Angkor: Eine Reisen nach den Ruinen von Angkor, Berlin, Dietrich Reimer (Ernst Vohsen), 1912, 82 p.
[with A. Grünwedel & K. Döhring] Buddhistische Tempelanlagen in Siam / Thailand. 1−2−3. Der indische Kulturkreis in Einzeldarstellungen. Berlin, 1916, vol 1, 2; Bangkok, Asia Publishing House, vol. 3, 1920; repr. 3 vol., Inktank Publishing, 2019, ISBN13 9783747759769 [German, Pali, Thai].
“Erklärung des Nashornreiters auf den Reliefs von Angkor-Vat”, Artibus Asiae. 1 – 2, 1925, 128 – 130.

Photo: Cover of Buddhistische Tempelanlagen in Siam, vol. 3, 1920.