Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
Assyriology

Assyriology

9.9
The study that looks at the history, language, and life of ancient Assyrians in Mesopotamia
  • noun
  • /əˌsɪrɪˈɒlədʒi/
  • Specialized
: asiriología
  • Many scholars contribute to the field of Assyriology by translating cuneiform texts from ancient civilizations.

Examples

  • The university offers a comprehensive program in Assyriology, allowing students to explore ancient Mesopotamian cultures.

  • But it is also in the urgent interest of the nation at large to see that the universities recruit and retain graduate students of excellence in every field, from Assyriology to astrophysics, and train them within a reasonable time to assume an appropriate place in a college or university.

    Academic text (1990)

  • She decided to pursue Assyriology because of her fascination with ancient languages and history.

Surface Forms

Assyriology singular
Assyriologies plural

Morphology

Assyriology = Assyria (semi-transparent) = Assyria + logy

The word clearly means the study of Assyria, but the specialized academic sense is only partly predictable from the base word and the suffix.

Etymology

The word Assyriology comes from Assyria, the name of an ancient land and its people in the area of modern Iraq, and the ending -logy, which means 'study' and appears in words like biology and psychology. So, Assyriology is the study of the history, language, and culture of the ancient Assyrians.