
author
1880–1945
An American historian and Assyriologist, this early specialist in the ancient Near East helped bring Assyrian and Persian history to a wider audience through clear, influential scholarship. He spent much of his career at the University of Chicago, where he taught Oriental history and wrote major works on the ancient world.

by A. T. (Albert Ten Eyck) Olmstead
Born on March 23, 1880, Albert Ten Eyck Olmstead was an American historian and scholar of the ancient Near East. He became known especially for his work on Assyria and Persia, fields that were still taking shape in American universities during his lifetime.
Olmstead served as Professor of Oriental History at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. His books, including History of Assyria and History of the Persian Empire, helped introduce generations of readers to the politics, cultures, and records of the ancient Middle East in a way that was both scholarly and approachable.
He died in Chicago on April 11, 1945. Although not as widely remembered today as some later historians, his work played an important part in building modern study of the ancient Near East in the United States.