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Christians of Iraq
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Renowned Assyrian Scholar Erica Reiner
By WOLFGANG SAXON
January 22, 2006Erica Reiner, an internationally renowned scholar of Assyrian, one of the world's oldest written languages, died on Dec. 31 at her home in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. She was 81.
The cause was lung cancer, according to the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, where she was the John A. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor emeritus.
Dr. Reiner spent 44 years working on the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, the first of several such monumental undertakings in ancient languages in the United States, and saw it through to completion. Work on the Assyrian project started in 1921. She joined it as a research assistant in 1952, became an associate editor in 1956, editor in 1962, and finally editor in charge from 1973 until her retirement in 1996.
Assyrian, an ornately complex language more commonly called Akkadian, originated in the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers, in Mesopotamia, but in the second millennium B.C. served as a common means of communication throughout the Middle East. From about 2600 B.C. on, it was written in cuneiform, or wedge-shaped letters, impressed by stylus on wax or clay or incised in stone.
Akkadian was the region's predominant tongue for more than 2,500 years, and the dictionary, more than a mere list of words, grew into an encyclopedia of the region's culture, including law, astronomy, poetry, religion and the history of science. Its first volume was published in 1956. It now includes 23 volumes, with two more at the printer and a final volume due later this year.
Dr. Reiner had a hand in all the volumes, said Martha Roth of the institute, now the dictionary's editor in charge, because she continued to write, review and edit entries for them after her formal retirement.
Dr. Reiner's knowledge of Babylonian history of science was legendary among scholars. She wrote "Astral Magic in Babylonia" (1995), which traced the roots of Greek medicine and science to Babylonian magical practices using plants and other ingredients and seeking to harness the powers of celestial bodies. Two other books remain in print, "Adventure of Great Dimension: The Launching of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary" (2002), and "Letters from Early Mesopotamia" (1993), which she edited.
She published "A Linguistic Analysis of Akkadian" in 1966 and a collection of essays on the poetry of Babylonia and Assyria in 1985. She was one of only a few people alive proficient in the ancient language called Elamite and published a grammar in 1969.
Erica Reiner was born in Budapest, where she received an undergraduate degree in linguistics in 1948. She studied Elamite, Sumerian and Akkadian in Paris for a diploma from the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes and earned a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1955, the year before she joined the faculty. By that time, three decades had been spent on planning and preparing the Assyrian dictionary, but no draft existed.
Dr. Reiner succeeded in securing sustained support for the project from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1976. A comprehensive record of a past civilization, it was the endowment's longest project, lasting more than 30 years, and the one with the highest level of support. It also became a Mecca for scholars from around the world.
Dr. Reiner is survived by a sister, Eva Cherna of Montreal.