Wayne Horowitz

Wayne Horowitz is an American-Israeli Assyriologist and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He specializes in Mesopotamian astronomy, ancient Near Eastern cosmology, and the study of cuneiform texts from ancient Israel. His research on Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform texts dealing with the structure of the cosmos is considered authoritative in the field.

Early life and education Horowitz was born in Roslyn, New York. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Classical and Oriental Studies (Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Akkadian) from Brandeis University, graduating summa cum laude with highest honors and election to Phi Beta Kappa. It was at Brandeis that he first encountered the Ancient Near East and cuneiform script, deciding to pursue further studies in the field.

Career Following completion of his doctorate in 1986, Horowitz and his family immigrated to Israel as olim (Jewish immigrants).

His second major area of research involves the study and publication of cuneiform documents discovered in the Land of Israel. This work began in the 1990s with an invitation to study newly discovered tablets at Hazor and expanded into a comprehensive project to collect and publish all known cuneiform texts from ancient Israel. Horowitz has also published the first cuneiform tablets ever discovered in Jerusalem.

Horowitz has contributed to Jewish history through his work with the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem on the Al-Yahudu archive—administrative tablets from the "City of the Jews," a Judean community in southern Babylonia dating to the 570s BCE that document life during the early Babylonian exile. He has lectured on this research under the title "What I Learned About Being Jewish in the Canadian Arctic."

Selected publications

Books Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998. A Catalogue of Cuneiform Tablets in the Birmingham City Museum, with P. Watson. Volume 1 (1986); Volume 2 (1993). Cuneiform in Canaan: Cuneiform Sources from the Land of Israel in Ancient Times, with Takayoshi Oshima. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2006. Writing Science Before the Greeks: A Naturalistic Analysis of the Babylonian Astronomical Treatise MUL.APIN, with Rita Watson. Leiden: Brill, 2011. The Three Stars Each: The Astrolabes and Related Texts. Vienna: Archiv für Orientforschung, Beiheft 33, 2014.

Selected articles "The Babylonian Map of the World." Iraq 47 (1988): 147–165. with A. Shaffer, "An Administrative Tablet from Hazor: A Preliminary Edition." Israel Exploration Journal 42 (1992): 21–33. with V. Hurowitz, "Urim and Thummim in Light of a Psephomancy Ritual from Assur (LKA 137)." Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Studies 21 (1992): 95–115. "Mesopotamian Accounts of Creation." In Encyclopedia of Cosmology, ed. N. Hetherington. Garland Press, 1993, pp. 387–397. with Takayoshi Oshima and Seth Sanders, "A Bibliographical List of Cuneiform Inscriptions from Canaan, Palestine/Philistia, and The Land of Israel." Journal of the American Oriental Society 122 (2002): 753–766. with E. Mazar, T. Oshima, and Y. Goren, "A Cuneiform Tablet from the Ophel in Jerusalem." Israel Exploration Journal 60 (2010): 4–21.

Professional service Associate Editor, Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society Associate Editor, Journal of Ancient Civilizations Editorial Board Member, Review of Biblical Literature, Society of Biblical Literature Academic Advisory Committee, Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem

Awards and honors Gerald A. Soffen Memorial Fund Award Townsend Fellowship, Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities, University of California, Berkeley (2012) Halbert Centre Faculty Research Exchange Program Grant (2012)