Sidney Smith (29 August 1889 – 12 June 1979) was an Assyriologist (both a linguist and archeologist) who has been described as the architect of Mesopotamian studies.
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Life
He was born in Leeds, 29 August 1889, studied in City of London School, and went to Queen's College, Cambridge on a Classical Exhibition. During WW1 he served as a subaltern in an infantry battalion. He was first diagnosed with diabetes in 1933. In 1955 he retired to Barcombe, near Lewes in Sussex. His son, Henry Sidney, eventually became Professor of Egyptology at University of London in 1970.
Work
His life's work focussed on semitic philology, political geography and Mesopotamian archaeology. He was appointed to the British Museum in 1914, but took up his post in 1919, eventually becoming the Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities. He was active in teaching, being a lecturer in Accadian Assyriology (1924-38) at King’s College, London. This overlapped with appointments at the new Institute of Archaeology (University of London) from 1934.
He was the Director of Antiquities and Director of the Iraq Museum (1926-31). His was work was recognised by the British Academy by elections as a fellow in 1941.
He retired from British Museum on grounds of ill-health in 1948, but then immediately took up the Chair of Ancient Simitic Languages and Civilization at University College London.
… for him to be intellectually wrong was to be morally wrong. That made him a difficult colleague but a most stimulating teacher