William Muss-Arnolt

William (Wilhelm) Muss-Arnolt (May 7, 1860 in Cologne[1] – June 25, 1927 in New York[2]) was an Assyriologist and librarian known for his exposition of the Assyrian language.

Muss-Arnolt received a B.D. from New Brunswick Theological Seminary in 1883, and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1888. He taught at the University of Michigan for one semester, then went to the University of Chicago, where he continued work on his Concise Dictionary of the Assyrian Language. He ended his career as a librarian at the Boston Public Library.[3][4][5]

In 1900 Muss-Arnolt published an article positing a Babylonian origin for the words Urim and Thummim in the Hebrew Bible. This article originally appeared in the American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures and was thereafter published separately by the University of Chicago Press.[6]

Muss-Arnolt's Concise Dictionary of the Assyrian Language was completed in 1905, providing a useful tool for translators faced with a large volume of newly discovered cuneiform texts.[7] The Chicago Tribune wrote of this work in progress in 1901:[8]

An ordinary dictionary stands as a monument to several men's perseverance, but one compiled by one man which has to make plain in two languages the mysteries of the Assyrian is not an ordinary monument—it is an obelisk.

University of Michigan librarian William W. Bishop wrote that he owed to Muss-Arnolt "a severe regard for bibliographic accuracy." He also mentions that Muss-Arnolt was Protestant, with Jewish ancestry.[4]

  1. ^ Who's who in New York (City and State), ed. Frank. R. Holmes, 8th edition, New York 1924; p. 922.
  2. ^ "Personalien", Archiv für Orientforschung, Vol. 4, 1927, p. 175.
  3. ^ "The Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures", The University of Michigan: An Encyclopedic Survey, ed. Wilfred B. Shaw, Volume II, Parts III–V; University of Michigan Press, 1951; pp. 664–665.
  4. ^ a b William W. Bishop, "College Days—1889–93: Fragments of Autobiography"; Michigan Alumnus: Quarterly Review, Vol. LIV No. 10, December 6, 1947; p. 351.
  5. ^ Graduates and Fellows of the Johns Hopkins University, 1876-1913; Johns Hopkins University Circular, April 1914, p. 103.
  6. ^ "Notes of Recent Exposition", The Expository Times ed. James Hastings; Vol. 12, October 1900–September 1901; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, p. 147.
  7. ^ D. D. Luckenbill, "The New Assyrian Dictionary"; University of Chicago Magazine, November 1921, p. 214.
  8. ^ "Light Thrown by University of Chicago on History of the Oldest Civilization", Chicago Tribune, 3 March 1901, p. 37.