George G Cameron Professor, Ancient Near Eastern Civilization and Languages and Civilizations; Professor, Middle East Studies
sidd@umich.edu
Office Information:
202 South Thayer Street, Suite 3147, Ann Arbor, MI 48104-1608
phone: 734.647.4681
Center for Middle Eastern & North African Studies;
CMENAS Faculty;
GISC Faculty;
Global Islamic Studies Center
Education/Degree:
PhD, Program in Hittite Language, Literature, and History, Yale University, 1977
MPhil, Yale University, 1974
MA, Yale University, 1973
BA, Classics: Greek and Hebrew, Pomona College, 1970
About
Gary Beckman, a historian of the ancient Near East, came to UM from Yale in 1992. He offers courses primarily in the Akkadian and Hittite languages and in the history and culture of the ancient Near East. From 2004 to 2010 he served as Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Studies. In 2004-2005 he was President of the American Oriental Society, and since 1999 has been associate editor for the ancient Near East of the Society’s Journal. Beckman has also taught briefly at the Institute for the History of Ancient Civilizations of Northeast Normal University (Changchun, China), Beijing University, the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), and Bilkent University (Ankara, Turkey).
Beckman has published widely on Hittite religion and on Hittite social organization and diplomacy. He also compiled two catalogues of the Old Babylonian cuneiform tablets held by the Babylonian Collection of Yale University. The focus of his current research is the reception and adaptation of Syro-Mesopotamian culture by the Hittites. He is completing an edition of the tablets of the Epic of Gilgamesh recovered from the site of the Hittite capital Hattusa.
