KRAMER, SAMUEL NOAH

KRAMER, SAMUEL NOAH (1897–1990), U.S. Sumerologist. Born in Russia, Kramer was taken to the United States in 1906. His early years were spent in Philadelphia. He first embarked on a career in education. He then studied at Dropsie College (1926–27) and the University of Pennsylvania in 1929, writing his doctoral dissertation on an aspect of the then newly discovered *Nuzi texts (cf. Kramer, in: aasor, 11 (1929–30), 62–119). In 1930–31 he was in the field in Iraq and excavated at Tell Billah, Tepe Gawra, and Fara (cf. Kramer, in jaos, 52 (1932), 110–32). From 1932 to 1942 he was on the staff of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, specializing in the Sumerian language. His publications during this period include The Sumerian Prefix Forms be-and bi-in the Time of the Earlier Princes of Lagash (1936), Gilgamesh and the Ḥuluppu Tree (1938), and Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur (1940). In 1937–38 he copied Sumerian literary tablets in Istanbul, which were published in Sumerian Literary Texts from Nippur in the Museum of the Ancient Orient at Istanbul (1944). Kramer returned to study the Istanbul collection in 1946–47 and 1951–52. From 1942 to 1968 he was associated with the University of Pennsylvania, as research associate in the Babylonian collection of the University Museum in 1942–43, associate curator of the tablet collection from 1943 to 1947, and curator of the tablet collection and Clark Research Professor of Assyriology from 1948 to 1968. In 1968–69 Kramer was at the University of Indiana where he gave the Patton Lectures (cf. The Sacred Marriage Rite, 1969). In 1970 he was appointed to the department of religious sciences at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris. Kramer's research and extensive travels in search of Sumerian literary texts have been fundamental in the reconstruction of Sumerian literature. Kramer continued working intensively after his official retirement in 1968 until the time of his death at the age of 93. A member of the American Oriental Society, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the American Philosophical Society, he also received several honorary degrees. When the University Museum marked his ninetieth birthday with a public symposium, "History Begins at Sumer," in his honor, most of the world's Sumerian scholars attended. His basic research has resulted in several volumes of texts, some edited by Kramer himself and some in collaboration with other scholars who were able to benefit from his experience. He is also the author of numerous studies, including works on comparative aspects of Sumerian literature, society, and religion; editions of Sumerian compositions of various types; as well as several more popular works, Sumerian Mythology (1961); From the Tablets of Sumer (1956), revised as History Begins at Sumer (1958, 1961²); and The Sumerians (1963). In his work Kramer made numerous comparisons between Sumerian literature and the Bible.

add. bibliography:

S. Kramer, in: jaos, 103 (1983), 337–53 (personal reflections).

[Aaron Shaeffer /

Rohan Saxena (2^nd ed.)]