François Thureau-Dangin

François Thureau-Dangin (3 January 1872 in Paris – 24 January 1944 in Paris) was a French archaeologist, assyriologist and epigrapher. He played a major role in the deciphering of Sumerian and Akkadian languages.

He studied under Julius Oppert in Paris, and from 1895, was associated with duties performed at the Louvre, where in 1908, he was appointed assistant curator of the Oriental Antiquities department. On behalf of the museum, he conducted excavations at Arslan Tash (1927) and at Til Barsip (1929–1931).

He was a leading expert on Babylonian cuneiform texts, and worked on a theory concerning the origins of cuneiform writing, publishing the treatise Recherches sur l'origine de l'écriture cunéiforme (1898) as a result.

Along with Georges Dossin, he founded the Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, an association of orientalists, which hosts international events. He was a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy.

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