Hilprecht, H.V. (Hermann Vollrat), 1859-1925

Hermann Vollrat Hilprecht was born in Germany on July 28, 1859. He attended the University of Leipzig where he studied theology, law, and Semitic Languates. Hilprecht received his Ph.D. in 1883, and emigrated to the United States three years later where he became oriental editor of the SUNDAY SCHOOL TIMES in Philadelphia. That same year he was appointed a lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Pennsylvania, later being appointed to the Clark research professorship of Assyriology and Comparative Semitic philology.

During the University sponsored excavataion of Nippur, in present day Iraq, Hilprecht served as epigrapher in 1888-1889, and took over as scientific director after John P. Peters left in 1895. Hilprecht's subsequent criticisms of other team members and claims of discovery led to controversy among Near Eastern scholars in America - labeled the Peters-Hilprecht Controversy. The University of Pennsylvania convened a judicatory committee to look into the allegations, and issued a report exhonerating Hilprecht. In response to the American Scholoarly communities backlash against him, Hilprecht published a response, THE SO-CALLED PETERS-HILPRECHT CONTROVERSY, in 1908.

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