Strata: Milestones: Hayim Tadmor (1923–2005)

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Hayim Tadmor, leading Assyriologist and historian of the ancient Near East, passed away at the age of 82 in Jerusalem on December 11, 2005.

Tadmor was born in 1923 in Harbin, China, and immigrated with his family to Palestine in 1935. As a student at The Hebrew University, he concentrated in Bible and History and wrote his doctoral dissertation, Problems in Biblical Chronology, under Benjamin Mazar, his life-long mentor. In 1958, he was appointed the first lecturer in Assyriology at The Hebrew University, thus founding Near Eastern studies in the State of Israel.

Throughout his long and distinguished career, Tadmor was a welcome lecturer at many universities and professional conferences in Europe and the United States. He was a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and served as its vice-president (1995–2004), an honorary member of the American Oriental Society and a corresponding member of the American Association of Jewish Research.

In recognition of his scholarly achievements, he was awarded the Rothschild Prize in 2000.