Theodore Kwasman is an American

Assyriologist Assyriology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , ''-logy, -logia''), also known as Cuneiform studies or Ancient Near East studies, is the archaeological, anthropological, historical, and linguistic study of the cultures that used cune ...

and professor for Jewish studies. He is best known for his discovery of the first lines of the

Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic from ancient Mesopotamia. The literary history of Gilgamesh begins with five Sumerian language, Sumerian poems about Gilgamesh (formerly read as Sumerian "Bilgames"), king of Uruk, some of ...

Life

Theodore Kwasman was born in New York and began his studies at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

, where he read

Northwest Semitic languages Northwest Semitic is a division of the Semitic languages comprising the indigenous languages of the Levant. It emerged from Proto-Semitic in the Early Bronze Age. It is first attested in proper names identified as Amorite in the Middle Bronze ...

with Stanislav Segert and Ethiopic languages with

Wolf Leslau __NOTOC__ Wolf Leslau (; born November 14, 1906, in Krzepice, Vistula Land, Poland; died November 18, 2006, in Fullerton, California) was a scholar of Semitic languages and one of the foremost authorities on Semitic languages of Ethiopia. Youth ...

. He continued his university education at

Heidelberg University Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is Germany's oldest unive ...

, where he passed his doctorate under the Assyriologist Karlheinz Deller. He started his academic career at the Center for Jewish Studies Heidelberg, after which he became Professor for Jewish Studies at the

University of Duisburg-Essen The University of Duisburg-Essen () is a public research university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In the 2019 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', the university was awarded 194th place in the world. It was originally ...

. A few years later he moved to the Martin-Buber-Institut für Judaistik at the

University of Cologne The University of Cologne () is a university in Cologne, Germany. It was established in 1388. It closed in 1798 before being re-established in 1919. It is now one of the largest universities in Germany with around 45,187 students. The Universit ...

from where he retired in 2015. In 1998, he discovered among the cuneiform tablets of the Kouyunjik Collection in 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 ...

the first lines of the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Academic works (selection)

* ''Untersuchung zu Einbandfragmenten und ihre Beziehung zum Palästinischen Talmud'' (Heidelberg, 1986). * Legal Transactions of the royal court of Niniveh Part I: Tiglath-Pileser III through Esarhaddon, ''State Archives of Assyria VI'', edited by Theodore Kwasman and Simo Parpola (Helsinki, 1991), . * Neo-Assyrian Legal Documents in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum, ''Studia Pohl: Series Maior 14'' (Rome, 1988), . * together with Christa Müller-Kessler, A Unique Talmudic Aramaic Incantation Bowl, ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 120 (2000), pp. 159–165. * Two Aramaic Legal Documents, ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 63 (2000), pp. 274–283. * Der Dämon des Daches. Über Epilepsie in jüdischen Quellen, ''Heilkunde und Hochkultur. Geburt, Seuche und Traumdeutung in den antiken Zivilisationen des Mittelmeerraumes'', edited by A. Karenberg and Ch. Leitz (Münster, 2000), pp. 35–43. * Look it up in...? Aramaic Lexicography. Some General Observations, ''Aramaic Studies'' 1 (2003), pp. 191–209. * together with Markham Judah Geller, Two More Triangular Aramaic Tablets, ''Shlomo. Studies in Epigraphy, Iconography, Historyand Archaeology in Honor of Shlomo Moussaieff'', edited by R. Deutsch (Tel Aviv-Yafo 2003), pp. 99–104. * together with Ada Rapoport-Albert, Late Aramaic. The Literary and Linguistic Context of the "Zohar", ''Aramaic Studies'' 4 (2006), 5-19. * A New Assyrian Royal Funerary Text, ''Of God(s), Trees, Kings, and Scholars. Neo-Assyrian and Related Studies in Honour of Simo Parpola'' edited by Mikko Luukko, Saana Svärd, and Raija Mattila, (Helsinki, 2009) 111-125, . * Hebrew Graffiti on Ardashir I's Relief at Naqsh-i Rustam, ''Iranica Antiqua'' 47 (2012), pp. 399–403. * A New Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 132 (2012), pp. 73–95. * Some Remarks on the so-called "Bird Text", ''ISIMU'' 20-21 (2017-2018), pp. 205–220.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kwasman, Theodore American Assyriologists 1949 births Living people Academic staff of the University of Duisburg-Essen Academic staff of the University of Cologne