Jawad Saleem

Jawad Saleem was an Iraqi Assyriologist, author, cuneiformist, linguist, historian, and former curator of the National Museum of Iraq. He was born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1919 and received his postgraduate training at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago. He worked at the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage from 1938 to 1963, where he became the Director General and led several excavations and restoration projects. He also taught ancient history and civilization at the University of Baghdad and the University of Libya. He was an active member and vice president of the Iraqi Academy of Sciences. He published many books and articles on Mesopotamian language and culture, and translated several western works into Arabic, such as Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History and Seton Lloyd's Twin Rivers. He is best known for his Akkadian to Arabic translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, his decipherment of Babylonian mathematical tablets, and his discovery of the 4000-year-old Laws of Eshnunna. He died on 23 January 1961 in Baghdad, Iraq. He is considered one of Iraq's most eminent archaeologists.