William W. Hallo

William W. Hallo

William Wolfgang Hallo (March 9, 1928 – March 27, 2015) was professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature and curator of the Babylonian collection at Yale University. He was born in Kassel, Germany.

Hallo was a Master of Morse College, one of the twelve residential colleges at Yale University, between 1982 and 1987.

Hallo and J. J. A. Van Dijk were known for publishing the first translations and book-length discussion of the work of the Sumerian priestess and poet Enheduanna in 1968.

Biography

Born in Kassel, Germany, in 1928, Hallo left Germany in 1939 for England, and immigrated to the United States with his family in 1941. He received his B.A. from Harvard and studied in the Netherlands through a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Leiden. There he met and married Edith Pinto, with whom he had two children. After the death of Edith in 1994, he married Nanette Stahl.

Hallo studied for his Ph.D. 1951–1956 at the Oriental Institute with a fellowship from the University of Chicago under Professor I.J. Gelb. After receiving his Ph.D., he worked at Hebrew Union College’s Jewish Institute of Religion. In 1962, Hallo became assistant curator (and later curator) of the Babylonian Collection and professor of Assyriology at Yale, which he taught until his retirement in 2002.

Works

• Hallo, William W. (1957). Early Mesopotamian Royal Titles. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society. ISBN 0-940490-43-9.
• Hallo, William W.; Simpson, William Kelly (1971). The Ancient Near East: A History. Harcourt Brace College Publishers. ISBN 0-15-503819-2.
• Hallo, William W. (1996). Origins : The Ancient Near Eastern Background of Some Modern Western Institutions. Brill. ISBN 90-04-10328-7.
• Hallo, William W. (2009). The World's Oldest Literature: Studies in Sumerian Belles-Lettres. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-17381-1.

Translations

• Rosenzweig, Franz (1971). Der Stern der Erlösung [The Star of Redemption]. Trans. William W. Hallo. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. ISBN 0-03-085077-0.