Bahija Khalil (1934 – January 13, 2019) was an

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 ...

Assyriologist 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 director of the

Iraq Museum The Iraq Museum ( ar, المتحف العراقي) is the national museum of Iraq, located in Baghdad. It is sometimes informally called the National Museum of Iraq, a recent phenomenon influenced by other nations' naming of their national museum ...

from 1983 to 1989. She was the first woman director of the museum.

Life

Khalil was born in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

in 1934. She obtained her first degree in archaeology at the

University of Baghdad The University of Baghdad (UOB) ( ar, جامعة بغداد ''Jāmi'at Baghdād'') is the largest university in Iraq, tenth largest in the Arab world, and the largest university in the Arab world outside Egypt. Nomenclature Both University ...

. She studied further in Germany where she gained her Ph.D from

Humboldt University Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of ...

after studying

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 ...

writing in 1967. She became the first Iraqi archaeologist reading the scripts in Iraq and the first Iraqi student to obtain a doctorate in Archaeology from Germany. She carried out post-doctoral research at the University of Baghdad. She became the director of the Iraqi Museum in 1983. She was first woman director and she held that role until 1989. Her position is a matter of pride in Iraq where her appointment together with many others is seen as a first for Iraq in the Arab world. She and Nicolas Postgate published "Texts in the Iraq Museum: Texts from Niniveh" in 1994. She published ''Eine zweisprachige Hymne aus dem Haus des Beschwörungspriesters'' in 1998 in German. This concerns a hymn that is in two different languages. Khalil died in

Amman Amman (; ar, عَمَّان, ' ; Ammonite language, Ammonite: 𐤓𐤁𐤕 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''Rabat ʻAmān'') is the capital and largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 a ...

in 2019.

Works

* ''Mittelassyrische Keilschrifttexte aus Assurien'', 1967 * ''Eine zweisprachige Hymne aus dem Haus des Beschwörungspriesters'', 1998 *''Obelisk of Hammurabi'' (1980). *''The role of Assyrian colonies in Anatolia'', (1981) *''Medicine: Its Role and Status in the Civilization of Iraq'', (1989) *''Sokho and Mary Rulers'' (1990) *''Writings from Nineveh'' (1992)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Khalil, Bahija 1934 births 2019 deaths People from Baghdad Iraqi women archaeologists Iraqi archaeologists Museum directors Assyriologists Iraqi Assyriologists