Alan Ralph Millard (1 December 1937 – 6 June 2024) was a British orientalist who was Rankin Professor of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

and Ancient

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya language, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew language, Hebrew, Maltese language, Maltese, Modern South Arabian language ...

, and Honorary Senior Fellow (Ancient Near East), at the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology (SACE) in the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

. Millard worked on excavations at Tell Nebi Mend (ancient Qadesh-on-the-Orontes) and Tell Rif'at (ancient Arpad) in Syria, at

Petra Petra (; "Rock"), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu (Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean: or , *''Raqēmō''), is an ancient city and archaeological site in southern Jordan. Famous for its rock-cut architecture and water conduit systems, P ...

in Jordan, and at the

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

n capital

Nimrud Nimrud (; ) is an ancient Assyrian people, Assyrian city (original Assyrian name Kalḫu, biblical name Calah) located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah (), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. ...

(ancient Kalḫu) in Iraq. While working at the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

1961–1964, he rediscovered the Epic of

Atrahasis ''Atra-Hasis'' () is an 18th-century BC Akkadian epic, recorded in various versions on clay tablets and named for one of its protagonists, the priest Atra-Hasis ('exceedingly wise'). The narrative has four focal points: An organisation of allie ...

, which had lain unrecognised in a drawer for some decades. From 1964 to 1970 he was Librarian at

Tyndale House, Cambridge William Tyndale (; sometimes spelled ''Tynsdale'', ''Tindall'', ''Tindill'', ''Tyndall''; – October 1536) was an English Biblical scholar and linguist who became a leading figure in the Protestantism, Protestant Reformation in the year ...

, and taught Akkadian for a year at the

School of Oriental and African Studies The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...

(SOAS) in the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

. In 1970 he was appointed Rankin Lecturer in Hebrew and Ancient Semitic Languages at the University of Liverpool. He was a Fellow at the

Institute of Advanced Studies The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

(IAS) in the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

in 1984, studying in a team led by

Yigael Yadin Yigael Yadin ( ; 20 March 1917 – 28 June 1984) was an Israeli archeologist, soldier and politician. He was the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces and Deputy Prime Minister from 1977 to 1981. Biography Yigael Sukenik (later Y ...

. His main interest lay in Semitic

epigraphy Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...

, and in editing Akkadian

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

tablets and

Aramaic Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...

inscriptions. Scribal practices in the

ancient Near East The ancient Near East was home to many cradles of civilization, spanning Mesopotamia, Egypt, Iran (or Persia), Anatolia and the Armenian highlands, the Levant, and the Arabian Peninsula. As such, the fields of ancient Near East studies and Nea ...

remained a dominant concern for him; the importance he ascribed to this topic stems largely from his belief as an

Evangelical Christian Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of th ...

in the essential historicity of the Bible – a point of view he shared with his colleague at Liverpool, the

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , ''-logia''; ) is the scientific study of ancient Egypt. The topics studied include ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end ...

Kenneth Kitchen Kenneth Anderson Kitchen (1932 – 6 February 2025) was a British biblical scholar, Ancient Near Eastern historian, and Personal and Brunner Professor Emeritus of Egyptology and honorary research fellow at the School of Archaeology, Classics and ...

. Millard was a Fellow of the

Society of Antiquaries of London The Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL) is a learned society of historians and archaeologists in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1707, received its royal charter in 1751 and is a Charitable organization, registered charity. It is based ...

, a member of the

Society for Old Testament Study The Society for Old Testament Study (SOTS) is a learned society, based in the British Isles, of professional scholars and others committed to the study of the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament. History SOTS was inaugurated at King's College, London on ...

– and was also Vice-Chairman of the

British School of Archaeology in Iraq The British Institute for the Study of Iraq (BISI) (formerly the British School of Archaeology in Iraq) is the only body in Britain devoted to research into the ancient civilizations and languages of Mesopotamia. It was founded in 1932 and its aim ...

. He died on 6 June 2024, at the age of 86.Obituary: Professor Alan Millard
University of Liverpool

Publications

*''Atrahasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood'' (with W.G. Lambert), Clarendon Press, Oxford (1969); reprinted Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana, (1999) * *
''Daniel 1–6 and History''
(1977) * *''La Statue de Tell Fekherye et son inscription bilingue assyro-araméenne'' (with A. Abou-Assaf and P. Bordreuil), Association pour la diffusion de la pensée française, Paris (1982) * Reprinted as: *''Discoveries from the Time of Jesus'' (1990) * * *''The Eponyms of the Assyrian Empire, 910–612 BC'', State Archives of Assyria Studies 2, The

Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project is an international scholarly project aimed at collecting and publishing ancient Assyrian texts of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and studies based on them. Its headquarters are in Helsinki in Finland. State Archives ...

, University of Helsinki (1994)
''The Knowledge of Writing in Iron Age Palestine''
(1995) *''Discoveries from Bible Times'', Lion Publishing, Oxford (1997) *''Dictionary of the Ancient Near East'' (edited, with Piotr Bienkowski), British Museum Press, London (2000) *''Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus'', Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield (2000) * *

References

External links

Research Interests & Publication List from SACE websiteBibliographyThe Alphabet: Its Creation and Development
– appearance on the BBC Radio 4 discussion programme '

In Our Time In Our Time may refer to: * ''In Our Time'' (1944 film), a film starring Ida Lupino and Paul Henreid * ''In Our Time'' (1982 film), a Taiwanese anthology film featuring director Edward Yang; considered the beginning of the "New Taiwan Cinema" * ''In ...

' (2003)
''Did Christ Leave a Paper Trail?''
– text of an interview with Millard (2004)

– a review in ''

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures The ''Journal of Hebrew Scriptures'' is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by the University of Alberta. It was established in 1996 with Ehud Ben Zvi as the founding editor, and covers the Hebrew Bible and the history of ancient Israel ...

'' 7 (2007) of this

festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

, edited by Piotr Bienkowski, Christopher Mee and Elizabeth Slater, New York and London (2005) {{DEFAULTSORT:Millard, Alan 1937 births 2024 deaths Academics of the University of Liverpool Academics of SOAS University of London British orientalists English Assyriologists British biblical scholars Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Christian Hebraists Employees of the British Museum Old Testament scholars

Publications

See also

References

External links