Assyriology

Dr. Arboll, in turn, had been looking for a partner that shared his interest in Assyriology, the study of Mesopotamian languages and the sources written in them.

“It is only some large and well-known buildings that are excavated,” said Olof Pedersen, professor emeritus in Assyriology at Sweden’s Uppsala University and a consultant to the World Monuments Fund.

There were precursors to Hammurabi's laws, explains Dr Frances Reynolds, Assyriology expert at Oxford University, but the stele and 130,000 clay tablet documents from the period establish the king as a "fantastic administrator".

Then he came to New York to take up the position of Instructor in Assyriology in Columbia.

And well it is for the science of Assyriology that they used this exceedingly durable material.