Abraham (Abe) Sachs (1915 – April 22, 1983) was an American Assyriologist. He earned his PhD in Assyriology in 1939 at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

. Of note is his collaboration with

Otto Neugebauer Otto Eduard Neugebauer (May 26, 1899 – February 19, 1990) was an Austrian-American mathematician and historian of science who became known for his research on the history of astronomy and the other exact sciences as they were practiced in anti ...

, whom he met in 1941 when the latter visited the Oriental Institute in Chicago. Neugebauer and Sachs worked jointly on the publication of Babylonian astronomical texts. In 1948 Sachs was offered (and declined) the Chair in Assyriology at

in succession to William Albright. In 1949 he worked at the Pontificio Instituto Biblico. In 1952 he received a Rockefeller Foundation travel grant to study

Babylonian astronomical diaries The Babylonian astronomical diaries are a collection of Babylonian cuneiform texts that contain systematic records of astronomical observations and political events as well as predictions, based on astronomical observations. They also include othe ...

in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, where he had access to the texts stocked by the pioneer British assyriologist

Theophilus Pinches Theophilus Goldridge Pinches M.R.A.S. (1856 – 6 June 1934 Muswell Hill, London), was a pioneer British assyriologist. Pinches was originally employed in father's business as a die-sinker, but, following an amateur interest in cuneiform ins ...

between 1895 and 1900. Sachs died due to cancer, leaving the task to Austrian assyriologist Hermann Hunger. Attention has been drawn to Sach's well-informed and humorous rebuttal of

Immanuel Velikovsky Immanuel Velikovsky (; rus, Иммануи́л Велико́вский, p=ɪmənʊˈil vʲɪlʲɪˈkofskʲɪj; 17 November 1979) was a Jewish, Russian-American psychoanalyst, writer, and catastrophist. He is the author of several books offering ...

's use of ancient astronomical texts during a debate at Brown University in 1965, which Velikovsky failed to contest ever afterwards."ADDRESS OF ABRAHAM SACHS AT BROWN UNIV. 3/15/65"
transcript provided by

C. Leroy Ellenberger Charles Leroy Ellenberger (born 1942, known as C. Leroy) is perhaps best known as a one-time advocate, but now a critic of, controversial writer Immanuel Velikovsky and his works on catastrophism. He first read ''Worlds in Collision'' in 1969. In 1 ...

, with comments (retrieved April 28, 2015)

References

1915 births 1983 deaths American Assyriologists Johns Hopkins University alumni 20th-century American historians {{archaeologist-stub Assyriologists