Adolf Leo Oppenheim

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Adolf Leo Oppenheim (7 June 1904 – 21 July 1974) was an American

Oriental Institute from 1955 to 1974 and John A. Wilson Professor of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago
.

Oppenheim was born in

Holocaust, and his wife, Elizabeth, barely escaped. Oppenheim and his wife emigrated to the United States. After a couple of lean years,[citation needed] he became a research associate at the University of Chicago in 1947, and he was made a faculty member in 1950. He became an associate editor of the university's Chicago Assyrian Dictionary in 1952. The dictionary had been planned since 1921, and it would eventually stretch to more than twenty published volumes. Assisted by Erica Reiner
, Oppenheim remained editor-in-charge until his sudden death, still at the height of his intellectual powers.

E. A. Speiser once said that Oppenheim had read more cuneiform than any other living person;[1] his deep knowledge of Akkadian informed his discerning view of Mesopotamian daily life and culture. He also collaborated with Jeanne-Marie Aynard on the interpretation of dreams in the ancient Near East.[2]

A. Leo Oppenheim's most famous work is Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization.[3] His attempt to reform the field, embodied in Assyriology— Why and How?, was taken personally by some other Assyriologists. Its tone of pessimism at the impossible prospect of reviving a living understanding of Mesopotamian culture belied his personal optimism and sociability.[1]

Works

  • Untersuchungen zum babylonischen Mietrecht. Vienna (Wien): Selbstverlag des Orientalischen Institutes der Universität. 1936.
  • The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East. Gorgias Press. 1956. .
  • Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization. Chicago: )
  • Letters from Mesopotamia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1967.
  • Essays on Mesopotamian Civilization: Selected Papers of A. Leo Oppenheim. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1974. (edited by Erica Reiner and Johannes Renger)
  • Glass and Glassmaking in Ancient Mesopotamia. London: Associated University Presses. 1988. .
  • Oppenheim, A.L (1985). "The Babylonian Evidence of Achaemenian Rule in Mesopotamia". In .

Notes

  1. ^ a b Quoted in obituary by Erle Leichty, Journal of the American Oriental Society 95.3 (July 1975, pp. 369–370), p. 369.
  2. ^ texte, Société psychanalytique de Paris Auteur du (1962-01-01). "Revue française de psychanalyse : organe officiel de la Société psychanalytique de Paris". Gallica. Retrieved 2024-03-04.
  3. ).

External links