Hans Gustav Güterbock, one of the world's foremost scholars on the ancient Near East, died Wednesday, March 29. He collapsed at his home in Chicago and was pronounced dead at the Doctor's Hospital of Hyde Park. He was 91.Güterbock was the University's Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Oriental Institute and the Departments of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Linguistics, and co-editor of the Chicago Hittite Dictionary. In 1996 became the second person to receive the American Oriental Society Medal of Merit in recognition of his lifetime contributions to the field of Hittitology. The award was established in 1985 and was designed to be given infrequently and only for work of particularly outstanding quality.
During his long career, Güterbock published extensively on the Hittites, a people of the ancient Near East who inhabited the central plateau of Anatolia, now part of Turkey. The earliest Hittite texts in cuneiform writing date to circa 1600 B.C. and are the oldest written records of any Indo-European language.
"We have lost one of the true giants, one of the handful of scholars who developed the new discipline of Hittitology and then shaped and nurtured it for more than a half century," said Craig Melchert, professor of Indo-European linguistics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Güterbock was the author of many groundbreaking studies on the Hittites, said Erica Reiner, the University of Chicago's John Wilson Distinguished Service Professor Emerita in the Oriental Institute. "He was one of the first decipherers of the hieroglyphic script used by the Hittites on seals and rock inscriptions."
Güterbock's depth and breadth of learning were astonishing, Reiner said. He was one of the few Hittite specialists who combined the study of philology - written documents and their language - with archaeology and history. "Most people are able to specialize in only one of the subfields," Reiner said. "He was also one of the few Hittitologists who had a very good command of the Akkadian language, also known as Assyro-Babylonian." Yet Güterbock still took the time to show personal kindness and respect to Melchert when, as a brash newcomer he sent Güterbock an unsolicited copy of his just-written dissertation. Melchert said he would remember Güterbock for that kindness and for his indomitable spirit.
"Aided by his wife and friends, he continued to work as a fully engaged scholar to the very end, defying the limitations of advancing age," Melchert said.
Harry Hoffner, who 25 years ago became Güterbock's successor as Professor of Hittitology and co-edited with him the Oriental Institute's Hittite Dictionary, remembers with satisfaction the hundreds of hours the two worked together on problems of Hittite vocabulary. An especially poignant recollection is their final conversation by phone which took place only hours before Güterbock's death. Güterbock described a dream he recently had in which he was shown an unpublished Hittite tablet containing a phrase the two scholars had been grappling with and offered evidence for a solution.
He laughed when Hoffner teased him by suggesting that his dream might give them the solution. "His eyesight was gone at the end and most of his hearing," Hoffner noted. "But his mind was as sharp and logical as ever."Güterbock was born in Berlin, German, on May 27, 1908. He served on the staff of the Berlin Museum from 1933 to 1935, during which time he participated in archaeological expeditions to Boghazkoy, Turkey. He received his Ph.D. from Leipzig University in 1934, but soon left Germany because under Nazi racist laws he could not find employment in his field.
Güterbock was a member of the faculty of Ankara University in Turkey from 1936 until 1948. He spent the 1948-1949 academic year as a guest lecturer at Sweden's Uppsala University. Güterbock joined the faculty of the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute in 1949 and was named the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor in 1959.
While at Chicago, Güterbock participated in several more expeditions to Boghazkoy and in the publication of inscriptions found there. In 1963, he began using compüters to to facilitate the analysis of Hittite grammar.
Güterbock served as president of the American Oriental Society in 1962, and of the American Research Institute in Turkey from 1968 to 1977.
In 1976, together with the Oriental Institute's Harry Hoffner, Güterbock launched the Chicago Hittite Dictionary Project with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The project continues today.
His honors include elected membership to several learned societies worldwide, including the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Uppsala in Sweden, Ankara University in Turkey and Freie Universitat Berlin in Germany. And two times during his career, Güterbock's colleagues honored him with a festschrift, a specially published volume of writings and essays traditionally dedicated to an esteemed scholar.
Güterbock is survived by his wife, Frances, of Chicago; two sons, Thomas, of Charlottesville, Va., and Walter, of Scotts, Mich.; five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. In lieu of flowers contributions should be sent to the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, 1155 E. 58th St., Chicago, IL, 60637. Burial services will be private and public memorial services are pending.
University of Chicago News Office
05.04.2000