Hilprecht, H. V.

Hilprecht, H. V. (Herman Volrath) (1859–1925) archaeologist; born in Hohenerxleben, Germany. He came to the U.S.A. as a young Ph.D. versed in theology, philology, and law to join the University of Pennsylvania faculty (1886–1911). An authority on cuneiform and Babylonian antiquities, he was scientific director of four expeditions to Nippur, Iraq, the source of more than a dozen volumes of Babylonian texts. His latter years were clouded by scholarly controversies.