Ernst Förstemann

Ernst Wilhelm Förstemann was a German historian, mathematician, doctor of linguistics, librarian, and director of the Saxon State Library in Dresden. He is known as a founder of onomastics and folk etymology studies in Germany, and also for his seminal contributions made in the early years of Mayanist research, towards the decipherment and understanding of calendrical elements in the pre-Columbian Maya script. He was the first European to understand and interpret the Maya number system, their use of the “zero,” and their calendar system.