Hugo Winckler (4 July 1863 – 19 April 1913) was a German orientalist,[1] archaeologist, and historian who uncovered the capital of the Hittite Empire (Hattusa) at Boğazkale, Turkey.

A student of the languages of the ancient Middle East, he wrote extensively on Assyrian cuneiform and the Old Testament, compiled a history of Babylonia and Assyria that was published in 1891, and translated both the Code of Hammurabi and the Amarna letters.

[4] Otto Rank, in Art and Artist, describes Winckler as the "rediscoverer of the ancient Oriental world picture in the fifth to sixth millennium B.C.

This was still the belief of medieval medicine, which we know to have had (chiefly for the purpose of bleeding) a method of dividing up the human body according to the twelve signs of the zodiac (head, ram; neck, bull; arms, twins; and so on).

On this 'scientific' treatment of a patient was based..." Rank also wrote in Art and Artist, regarding the significance of macroscosmic symbolism, "In the first, and still the best, summary of this sort, which Winckler gives us in the chapter "Myth, Legend, and Play" of his popular account of the intellectual culture of ancient Babylon, the fundamental fact is established that the festivals connected with various games had all a seasonal character, with a definite calendar as their basis.