Thorkild Jacobsen (Danish pronunciation: [yahkobsen]) was a renowned historian specializing in Assyriology and Sumerian literature. Jacobsen received an MA from the University of Copenhagen and then came to the United States to study at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, where he received his PhD. He became a Field Assyriologist for the Iraq Expedition of the Oriental Institute (1929-1937) and in 1946 became Director of the Oriental Institute. In 1962, Jacobsen became a professor of Assyriology at Harvard University, where he remained until his retirement in 1974. He died in 1993. William Lambert Moran (1921-2000) was an esteemed Assyriologist and Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University.
