Friedrich Delitzsch (German, 1850–1922), expert on Middle Eastern languages who maintained that much of Old Testament was derived from ancient Babylonian tales.
Lamia Al-Gailani Werr (Iraqi, 1938–2019), specialist in ancient Mesopotamian antiquities.
Paul Garelli (French, 1924–2006), lecturer and professor at the Sorbonne who taught history of the peoples of the Semitic East.
Joseph Étienne Gautier (French, 1861–1924), archaeologist who uncovered several overlapping stages of cultures that predated the time of Sargon of Akkad.
Edward Hincks, one of the decipherers of the cuneiform writing systemThomas Hyde, who attempted to correct from Oriental sources the errors of the Greek and Roman historians
Joseph Halévy (Ottoman-French, 1827–1917), Orientalist and traveller who crossed Yemen in search of Sabaean inscriptions.[1]
William W. Hallo (German-American, 1928–2015), professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature, and curator of the Babylonian collection at Yale University.
Edward Hincks (Irish, 1792–1866), one of the decipherers of Mesopotamian cuneiform.[4][5]
Paul Y. Hoskisson (American, born 1943), professor of Ancient scripture who has published research on the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament.
Thomas Hyde (English, 1636–1703), Orientalist and linguist who mastered Turkish, Arabic, Syriac, Persian, Hebrew and Malay, and coined the word "cuneiform".[6][7]
Karlheinz Kessler (German, 1948), Referent in Baghdad DAI, Professor of Assyriology at the Erlangen-Nürnberg University, historical topography of Eastern Turkey and Syria, editor of tablets from various periods Uruk.
Samuel Noah Kramer (Russian-American, 1897–1990), considered an expert in Sumerian history and language, he studied the Lament for Ur and other texts.
Franz Xaver Kugler (German, 1862–1929), mathematician who studied cuneiform tablets and Babylonian astronomy, and worked out the Babylonian theories on the Moon and planets.
Austen Henry Layard, who uncovered the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh in 1851William Loftus, who discovered the Sumerian city of Uruk in 1849
Wilfred G. Lambert (British, 1926–2011), historian and archaeologist, a specialist in Assyriology and Near Eastern Archaeology.
Emmanuel Laroche (French, 1914–1991), linguist and Hittitologist, expert in the languages of ancient Anatolia (Indo-European and Hurrian).
Austen Henry Layard (British, 1817–1894), traveller best known as the excavator of Nimrud and of Nineveh in 1851.[8]
Gwendolyn Leick (Austrian-British, born 1951), author of books and encyclopaedias about ancient Mesopotamia.
François Lenormant (French, 1837–1883), Hellenist and archaeologist, among the first to recognize in the cuneiform inscriptions the existence of a non-Semitic language he named Akkadian.
Hildegard Lewy (American, 1903–1969), specialist in cuneiform texts and Babylonian mathematics.
William Loftus (British, 1820–1858) geologist, naturalist, explorer and archaeological excavator who discovered the ancient Sumerian city of Uruk in 1849.[9]
Jørgen Læssøe (Danish, 1924–1993), excavator of Tell Shemshara and author of several popular history books on Assyriology in Danish
Edwin Norris (British, 1795–1872), philologist who deciphered the Assyrian lion weights from Nineveh and discovered the weight measurement system of this civilization.
Julius Oppert (French-German, 1825–1905), linguist who argued that the language spoken originally in Assyria was Turanian (related to Turkish and Mongolian).[10]
Henri Pognon (French, 1853–1921), archaeologist and epigrapher who collected Semitic inscriptions whose meaning he penetrated through an intense translation work.
Adrien Prévost de Longpérier (French, 1816–1882), numismatist, archaeologist and curator of antiquities who welcomed in the Louvre the first Assyrian sculptures that arrived in France from Khorsabad.
Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet, called the "Father of Assyriology"
Karen Radner (Austrian, born 1972), Professor of Ancient History at the University of Munich.
Anson Rainey (American, 1930–2011), Professor of ancient Near Eastern cultures and Semitic linguistics, known for the study of the Amarna tablets.
Hormuzd Rassam (Iraqi, British, 1826–1910), Assyriologist known for archaeological discoveries, including the clay tablets that contained the Epic of Gilgamesh.[11]
Sir Henry Rawlinson, 1st Baronet (British, 1810–1895), Orientalist who transcribed the Old Persian portion of the trilingual inscriptions in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian (a later form of Akkadian) written by Darius the Great.[12]
Erica Reiner (American, 1924–2005), editor of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, the basic reference work for understanding the Akkadian language.
Claudius Rich (British, 1787–1821), traveller and antiquarian scholar who explored the remains of Babylon, and projected a geographical and statistical account of the pashalic of Baghdad.
Michael Roaf (British, born 1947), archaeologist specializing in ancient Iranian studies and Assyriology.
Ernest de Sarzec (French, 1832–1901) archaeologist who discovered the civilization of ancient Sumer.[13]
Jules-Justin Sauveplane (French, 1862–1928), specialist of Biblical studies and of the ancient East who published one of the first French translations of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Archibald Sayce (British, 1845–1933), linguist able to write in at least twenty ancient and modern languages who emphasized the importance of archaeological and monumental evidence in linguistic research.
Eberhard Schrader (German, 1836–1908), pioneer of the field of Assyriology in Germany.
Giovanni Semerano (Italian, 1913–2005), philologist and linguist who studied the languages of Ancient Mesopotamia, and rejected the Indo-European theory.
Shin Shifra (Israeli, 1931–2012), poet, translator, writer, editor and literary critic who published adaptations for children of the Sumerian and Akkadian cultural heritage.
Åke W. Sjöberg (Swedish, 1924–2014), Assyriologist who specialized in Sumerian language and literature.
Wolfram von Soden (German, 1908–1996), scholar of ancient Semitic languages whose scholarship greatly influenced his field during the post World War II era.
Matthew Stolper (American, born 1944), expert on Babylonian legal texts, currently involved in the Persepolis Fortification Project.
Vasily Struve (Soviet, 1889–1965), historian who studied the history and arts of Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, the Hittite Empire and other civilizations of the Ancient Near East.
Saana Svärd (Finnish, born 1977), expert on the cultural history of the Ancient Near East, most notably the Neo-Assyrian Empire, social and political power relations, and ancient concepts of gender.
Henry Fox Talbot, a polymath, had a 20-year involvement in the field of Assyriology, and helped decipher the cuneiform inscriptions of Nineveh
Hayim Tadmor (Israeli, 1923–2005), specialist in biblical history and Ancient Near Eastern History.
Henry Fox Talbot (British, 1800–1877), scientist, inventor and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, but was involved in many other subjects, including the decipherment of cuneiform.
John George Taylor (British, fl. 1851–1861), early archaeologist who investigated antiquities of the Middle East and as one of the first archaeologists to explore the burial mounds near the Persian Gulf.
Klaas Veenhof (Dutch, born 1935), professor at the University of Leiden, specialist in the Old-Babylonian time and the Old-Assyrian trade colonies such as Kanesh.
James Kinnier Wilson (British, 1921–2022), expert in Mesopotamian legends and epics, with an interest in the study of the organic and mental diseases of ancient Mesopotamia.
Hugo Winckler (German, 1863–1913), archaeologist and historian who uncovered the capital of the Hittite Empire (Hattusa) at Boğazkale, Turkey, and student of the languages of the ancient Middle East,
Donald Wiseman (British, 1918–2010), Professor of Assyriology at the University of London from 1961 to 1982, compiled a catalogue of the cuneiform tablets unearthed at Nimrud.
Donny George Youkhanna (Iraqi, 1950–2011), archaeologist instrumental in recovering Mesopotamian artefacts looted from the National Museum in Baghdad during the American invasion of Iraq.
Richard L. Zettler (American, born 1949), professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, with special interests in urban development and the organization of complex societies in Early Bronze-Age Mesopotamia.
