Itamar Singer (; November 26, 1946 – September 19, 2012) was an Israeli author and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

of Jewish-Romanian origin. He is known for his research of the Ancient Near East and as a leading Hittitologist, pioneering the study of this

ancient Anatolians The Anatolians were a group of Indo-European peoples who inhabited Anatolia as early as the 3rd millennium BC. Identified by their use of the now-extinct Anatolian languages, they were one of the oldest collective Indo-European ethno-linguisti ...

culture in Israel and elucidating the tensions which brought about its demise.

Personal background

Itamar Singer was born on November 26, 1946, in Dej, in the multiethnic

Transylvania Transylvania ( or ; ; or ; Transylvanian Saxon dialect, Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjen'') is a List of historical regions of Central Europe, historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and ...

n region of

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

. He was the son of Zoltán and Gertrude Singer. The Hungarian-speaking family moved to

Cluj Cluj-Napoca ( ; ), or simply Cluj ( , ), is a city in northwestern Romania. It is the second-most populous city in the country and the seat of Cluj County. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest (), Budapest () and Belgrade ( ...

(''Kolozsvár'') when Singer was five years old. They relocated to Israel in 1958, where they settled in the new town of Holon. Singer married Argentinean-born Egyptologist, Dr. Graciela Noemi Gestoso.

Career

He studied for his bachelor's degree in archaeology and geography at 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. ...

graduating in 1968 and then went on to pursue his masters at

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

while fulfilling his national service obligation concurrently in the Israeli airforce. His Hittite studies were to continue at the

University of Marburg The Philipps University of Marburg () is a public research university located in Marburg, Germany. It was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Prote ...

, Germany, under the auspices of Heinrich Otten, resulting in his doctor-ship and yielding an influential thesis on "The Hittite KI.LAM Festival" in 1978. He joined the Department of Archaeology and Near East Cultures at Tel Aviv, at times simultaneously teaching in the Department of Jewish History and other educational establishments. He reached full professorship in 1996 and remained in this position until retiring due to poor health in 2008. The focus of his academic interest was in what he termed the ''Pax Hethitica'', a period of the 13th century BC – a golden age of international diplomatic relations between the great powers and with their

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

ine vassals. He was the first researcher to theorize that it was the internal rivalries and the schism which rendered the Hittite empire vulnerable to the

Bronze Age collapse The Late Bronze Age collapse was a period of societal collapse in the Mediterranean basin during the 12th century BC. It is thought to have affected much of the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East, in particular Egypt, Anatolia, the Aege ...

and the coup de grace delivered by the

Sea Peoples The Sea Peoples were a group of tribes hypothesized to have attacked Ancient Egypt, Egypt and other Eastern Mediterranean regions around 1200 BC during the Late Bronze Age. The hypothesis was proposed by the 19th-century Egyptology, Egyptologis ...

and others. His publications numbered over a hundred papers in academic journals, to which he continued to contribute well into retirement. For several years he was a member of the editorial board of the scholarly journal Antiguo Oriente. In 2010, Itamar Singer was awarded the EMET Prize.

Selected publications

* Singer, Itamar. ''The Hittite KI.LAM Festival'', 2 Vols, Harrassowitz, 1983, 1984. * Singer, Itamar and Izre'el, Shlomo. ''The General's Letter from Ugarit: A Linguistic and Historical Reevaluation of RS 20.33'', Tel Aviv University, 1990. * Singer, Itamar. ''Muwatalli's Prayer'', ASOR, 1996. * Singer, Itamar. ''Hittite Prayers'', Society of Biblical Literature, 2002. * Singer, Itamar. ''The Hittites and their Culture'' (in Hebrew), Jerusalem, 2009. * Singer, Itamar. ''The Calm before the Storm: Selected Writings of Itamar Singer on the End of the Late Bronze Age in Anatolia and the Levant'', Society of Biblical Literature, 2010.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Singer, Itamar 1946 births 2012 deaths People from Dej Romanian emigrants to Israel Romanian people of Hungarian-Jewish descent Historians of antiquity Hittitologists Israeli historians Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni