Education
Menke studied theology and philology at the University of Bonn, and in 1842 received his doctorate at Halle with a dissertation on ancient Lydia.
Menke studied theology and philology at the University of Bonn, and in 1842 received his doctorate at Halle with a dissertation on ancient Lydia.
He is remembered for his work in historical geography. Afterwards he worked as a schoolteacher in Bremen, but soon became dissatisfied with this line of work, and undertook legal studies in Berlin and Heidelberg. Throughout his life, Menke had an avid interest in geography, and via contact with Wilhelm Perthes (1783-1853) of the Justus Perthes Geographische Anstalt in Gotha, in the centre of Germany, his primary vocational focus turned to editting and producing geographical atlases.
In 1865 he published the third edition of Karl Spruner von Merz" Atlas Antiquus, and later produced the heavily revised third edition of Spruner"s atlas of medieval and modern historyHand-Atlas für die Geschichte des Mittelalters und die neueren Zeit (1871-1880).
The island group Menkeøyane in the Svalbard archipelago is named in his honor.
Menke, a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities since 1877, died in Gotha on 14 May 1892.