Alan Ralph Millard (born 1 December 1937) is Rankin Professor Emeritus of

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

and Ancient

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...

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

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

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

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

, at

Petra Petra ( ar, ٱلْبَتْرَاء, Al-Batrāʾ; grc, Πέτρα, "Rock", Nabataean Aramaic, Nabataean: ), originally known to its inhabitants as Raqmu or Raqēmō, is an historic and archaeological city in southern Jordan. It is adjacent to t ...

in Jordan, and at the

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the A ...

n capital

Nimrud Nimrud (; syr, ܢܢܡܪܕ ar, النمرود) is an ancient Assyrian city located in Iraq, south of the city of Mosul, and south of the village of Selamiyah ( ar, السلامية), in the Nineveh Plains in Upper Mesopotamia. It was a majo ...

(ancient Kalḫu) in

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

. While working at the British Museum 1961–1964, he rediscovered the Epic of Atrahasis, which had lain unrecognised in a drawer for some decades. From 1964 to 1970 he was Librarian at Tyndale Library, Cambridge, and taught

Akkadian Akkadian or Accadian may refer to: * Akkadians, inhabitants of the Akkadian Empire * Akkadian language, an extinct Eastern Semitic language * Akkadian literature, literature in this language * Akkadian cuneiform Cuneiform is a logo- syllabi ...

for a year at the

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) 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 ar ...

(SOAS) in the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

. In 1970 he was appointed Rankin Lecturer in Hebrew and Ancient Semitic Languages at Liverpool. He was a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) in the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...

in 1984, studying in a team led by

Yigael Yadin Yigael Yadin ( he, יִגָּאֵל יָדִין ) (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. B ...

. His main interest lies 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 logo-syllabic script that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Middle East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. It is named for the characteristic wedge-sha ...

tablets and

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

inscriptions. Scribal practices in the

ancient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...

remain a dominant concern for him; the importance he ascribes 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 Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual exper ...

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

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious ...

Kenneth Kitchen Kenneth Anderson Kitchen (born 1932) is 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 Egyptology, Univ ...

. Millard is a Fellow of the

Society of Antiquaries of London A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...

, a member of the Society for Old Testament Studies – and was also, until recently, 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 ...

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 and studies based on them. Its headquarters are in Helsinki in Finland. State Archives of Assyria 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 Living people 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 Assyriologists

Publications

See also

References

External links