Albert Tobias Clay (December 4, 1866 – September 14, 1925) was an American professor, historian and

Semitic Semitic most commonly refers to the Semitic languages, a name used since the 1770s to refer to the language family currently present in West Asia, North and East Africa, and Malta. Semitic may also refer to: Religions * Abrahamic religions ** ...

linguist. He was professor of

Assyriology Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , '' -logia'') is the archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic study of Assyria and the rest of ancient Mesopotamia (a region that encompassed what is now modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southea ...

and Babylonian Literature at Yale University and served as founding curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection.

Background

Albert Tobias Clay was born at Hanover in York County, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in

Lancaster, Pennsylvania Lancaster, ( ; pdc, Lengeschder) is a city in and the county seat of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It is one of the oldest inland cities in the United States. With a population at the 2020 census of 58,039, it ranks 11th in population amon ...

during 1889 and from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg in 1892. He was subsequently ordained into the Lutheran ministry.

Career

Clay went on the become a teaching fellow in

Assyrian Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyrian ...

and instructor in the Hebrew language at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1895–99, he returned as lecturer in Semitic archaeology after being an instructor in

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

theology at the Chicago Lutheran Seminary. He was assistant professor of Semitic philology and archaeology 1903–09 and full professor for one year. In 1910, Clay became the William M. Laffan Professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature at Yale University. In 1909,

J. Pierpont Morgan John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age. As the head of the banking firm that ultimately became known ...

funded the founding of the Yale Babylonian Collection at Yale University. Clay served as its first curator, a position which he held until his death in 1925. He served as Librarian of the American Oriental Society from 1913 to 1924 and as its president in 1924–25. He first visited Iraq in 1920, and returned in 1923 as the Commissioner for the

American Schools of Oriental Research The American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR), founded in 1900 as the American School of Oriental Study and Research in Palestine, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization based in Alexandria, Virginia which supports the research and teaching of ...

(ASOR) to formally open the Society school in Baghdad. He remained as its first annual Visiting Professor and Deputy Director (1923–24).

Selected works

His most important publications were Babylonian business and legal documents, especially ''Business Documents of Murashû Sons of Nippur'' (1898; et seq). ''Amurru, the Home of the Northern Semites'' (1909) shows the non-Babylonian origin of Israelite culture and religion. Other notable works included ''The empire of the Amorites'' (1919), ''An old Babylonian version of the Gilgamesh epic'' (1920), ''A Hebrew deluge story in cuneiform'' (1922) and ''The origin of Biblical traditions'' (1923).

Personal life

Albert T. Clay was married to Elizabeth Somerville McCafferty (1867–1936). They were the parents of Albert born in 1898 and Barbara born in 1905.

References

Note

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Clay, Albert Tobias 1866 births 1925 deaths American archaeologists American Assyriologists 20th-century American Lutheran clergy 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers 19th-century American historians 19th-century American male writers Linguists from the United States Old Testament scholars American orientalists Franklin & Marshall College alumni People from Hanover, Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania faculty American male non-fiction writers 19th-century American Lutheran clergy Assyriologists