Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Hilprecht, Hermann Vollrat

HILPRECHT, Hermann Vollrat, Assyriologist, b. in Hohenerxleben, Anhalt, Germany, 28 July, 1859. He studied theology, oriental languages, and law in the University of Leipsic, and received the degree of Ph. D. there in 1883. After spending two years in Switzerland for his health he was appointed by the Bavarian government adjunct professor of Old Testament theology in the University of Erlangen in 1885, and in 1886 came to Philadelphia as linguistic editor of the “Sunday-School Times.” Shortly after his arrival he was also elected professor of Assyrian in the University of Pennsylvania. In 1882 he spent two months in the British museum studying cuneiform literature. He is known among Assyriologists by his “Freibrief Nebukadnezars I.” (Leipsic, 1883). In the spring of 1887 he delivered, in the chapel of the University of Pennsylvania, a course of lectures on “The Family and Civil Life of the Egyptians,” “The Most Flourishing Period of Egyptian Literature,” and “Egypt in the Time of Israel's Sojourn.” His other literary works consist of contributions to Luthardt's “Theologisches Literaturblatt” (Leipsic), and to other periodicals.