Franz Xaver Kugler

Who was Franz Xaver Kugler?

Franz Xaver Kugler was a German chemist, mathematician, Assyriologist, and Jesuit priest.

Kugler was born in Königsbach, Palatinate, then part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. He earned a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1885, and the following year he entered the Jesuits. By 1893 he had been ordained as a priest. Four years later at the age of 35, he became a professor of Mathematics at Ignatius-College in Valkenburg in the Netherlands.

He is most noted for his studies of cuneiform tablets and Babylonian astronomy. He worked out the Babylonian theories on the Moon and planets, which were published in 1907. However his full work on Babylonian astronomy was never completed, with only three volumes out of a planned five published.

He died in Lucerne, Switzerland.