Karl David Ilgen (26 February 1763, in Sehna, a village near Eckartsberga – 17 September 1834, in Berlin) was a German Protestant Old Testament scholar and classical philologist.
Karl David Ilgen | |
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Born | February 26, 1763 |
Died | September 17, 1834 | (aged 71)
Nationality | German |
Education | Leipzig University |
He studied theology and philology at the University of Leipzig, and was later appointed rector at the munincipal gymnasium in Naumburg (1789). In 1794 he became a professor of oriental languages at the University of Jena. From 1802 to 1831, he was rector of the Landesschule Pforta.[1]
Ilgen is credited as the first to use the term "epyllion" in classical literature, coining the term in 1796 when describing the Homeric "Hymn to Hermes".[2]