Jeremy Black | |
---|---|
Born |
Isleworth, Middlesex |
1 September 1951
Died | 28 April 2004 Oxfordshire |
(aged 52)
Alma mater | University of Oxford |
Doctoral advisor | Edmond Sollberger, Oliver Gurney |
Known for | Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature |
Spouse | Ellen McAdam (divorced) |
Jeremy Allen Black, BA, BPhil, MA, DPhil (1 September 1951 – Oxford 28 April 2004) was a British Assyriologist and Sumerologist, founder of the online Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature.
Black was born in Isleworth, Middlesex, England, and was brought up in Buckinghamshire, England. He was the only son of tea-taster Dudley Black and Joan née Denton. At age two he was isolated for a whole year in hospital with polio, then at age five he suffered the death of his mother.
After his attendance at Slough Grammar School for Boys, in 1969 Black went to Oxford University as Exhibitioner in Classics to Worcester College. At Oxford he became interested in the ancient languages and cultures of Mesopotamia, and after qualifying changed his studies to Sumerian and Akkadian under Professor Oliver Gurney. Black's (still unpublished) BA dissertation was entitled "A History of Nippur, from the Earliest Times to the End of the Kassite Period”: this work was utilised in the very beginning of S.W. Cole's book Nippur in Late Assyrian Times, ca. 745-612 B.C., 1996, where it is described as the "only systematic treatment of Nippur's early history". In 1975 Black attained his BPhil in Cuneiform Studies.