author
Albert Tobias Clay
1866–1925
An early American Assyriologist, scholar of Babylonian literature, and ordained Lutheran minister, he helped shape the study of the ancient Near East in the United States. His work is closely tied to Yale’s Babylonian Collection, where he served as its founding curator.
1 Audiobook
An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic
by Morris Jastrow, Albert Tobias Clay
About the author
Born in Hanover, Pennsylvania, in 1866, he studied at Franklin and Marshall College and at the Lutheran Theological Seminary before entering academic life. He was ordained to the Lutheran ministry, then moved into advanced study and teaching in Semitic languages and Assyriology.
He taught at the University of Pennsylvania and later became professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature at Yale University. At Yale, he also served as the founding curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection, helping build an important center for the study of cuneiform texts and the ancient Near East.
Remembered as a historian, linguist, and editor of ancient Mesopotamian texts, he published widely on Babylonian records and on the history and literature of the ancient Near East. He died in 1925.