07th Meeting Arnhem, 1964

Proceedings of this Meeting were published in 1965.

General Report

The 7th meeting of the PIAC was held at the Conference Centre “De Pietersberg”, Oosterbeek, near Arnhem, from August 29th to September 3rd 1964. The realization of this meeting was largely due to a substantial grant from the Netherlands Ministry of Education, Arts and Sciences, while Messrs. Mouton & Co. of The Hague also contributed financially and in kind to the enjoyment of the participants. We should like to take this opportunity of offering our cordial thanks to both these benefactors.

The arrangement and organization of the meeting was in the hands of Prof. Dr. K. Jahn, who presided, and the permanent General Secretary, Prof. Dr. D. Sinor.

The following persons attended the meeting:

The meeting opened with the arrival of the participants in the course of Saturday afternoon, Aug. 29th. After the official welcome all met together for dinner which was followed by an informal evening. On Sunday there was also ample opportunity for contact between the members. An excursion took place to the Kröller-Müller Museum on the Hoge Veluwe and to Harderwijk in order to see something of the land-reclamation work in the Yssel Lake.

The first conference session, held on Monday, Sept. 1st, remained true to tradition and consisted of reports given by members of the work done in the past year in the field of Altaic studies in their respective countries and of plans for further research.

From Sept. 2nd to 4th a series of papers were read and discussed centred around the theme “The Horse in ancient Altaic Civilization”. From the very nature of the theme it inevitably followed that folk-lore, cultural and art-historical aspects came more to the fore than the purely linguistic. Among the addresses especial interest was aroused by Dr. E. Tryjarski’s, which was illustrated by a unique coloured film made by himself entitled “Les Monuments turcs de Mongolie”.

With a view to the early departure of some of the participants, the final session was held on Friday afternoon, though the meeting actually came to an end after lunch on Saturday, Sept. 4th. At the final session the invitation of Prof. Heissig to hold the following PIAC conference in the German Federal Republic was gratefully accepted. After some discussion and taking of the vote it was decided to take as central theme for this next meeting “The Hunt in Altaic Civilisation”.

The 1964 Prize for Altaic Studies, instituted by Indiana University, was awarded to Prof. Dr. E. Haenisch. Professors Aalto, von Gabain, Heissig and Sinor were appointed to the jury for the 1965 Prize.

On behalf of all participants, the Secretary-General finally expressed his thanks to the organizers and their assistants.