Jørgen Læssøe

Læssøe was born on 26 June 1924 in Jægerspris, Denmark. He was the son of Albert Læssøe, a grocer, and Karen Stroyer Nielsen,[1] as well as a descendant of Danish officer Frederik Læssøe.[2] He began studying comparative linguistics at the University of Copenhagen in 1942. Since the curriculum required knowledge of a non-Indo-European language, he took a course in Akkadian taught by Assyriologist Otto E. Ravn, which thereafter became the focus of his studies. Despite disruption caused by the German occupation of Denmark, he completed his studies and graduated with a magister degree in Semitic philology in 1948.[1][3] His thesis on the Code of Hammurabi was awarded a gold medal by the university.[1] After graduating, he spent three years in the United States, working on the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary.[2]

In 1951, Læssøe returned to Copenhagen and was appointed a lecturer. He received his doctorate in 1955 with a thesis on the Bīt rimki, an Assyrian ritual, and in 1957 succeeded Ravn as Professor Extraordinaire of Assyriology.[4] At the time of his appointment the only Assyriologist active in the country, Danish Assyriology is said to have "come of age" during his tenure.[5][6] His first magister student was Ebbe Egede Knudsen, later professor of Semitic philology in Oslo, followed by Aage Westenholz and Mogens Trolle Larsen, who eventually succeeded Læssøe as professors of Assyriology at Copenhagen.[6] Læssøe also served as dean of the Faculty of Humanities from 1968 to 1969 and was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley twice, first in 1953–55 and then as a Fullbright Scholar in 1966–67.[5]

Between 1956 and 1960 Læssøe worked as the epigrapher on Max Mallowan's excavations at Nimrud,[4][6] publishing two papers on inscriptions from the reign of Shalmaneser III.[7][8] During this time he learned of the construction of the Dukan Dam, which was set to flood some forty archaeological sites in the area of what is now Lake Dukan.[6] Securing funding from the Carlsberg Foundation and the Danish government,[9] he and archaeologist Harold Ingholt led the "Danish Dokan Expedition" in a rescue excavation of Tell Shemshara in 1957.[6] The excavations uncovered an Old Assyrian palace complex and substantial cache of cuneiform tablets,[10] which occupied Læssøe for much of the rest of his career.[6] He published a preliminary report on the Shemshara Archives in 1959,[11] and after his death his student Jesper Eidem continued the work, finally publishing the texts in two volumes in 1992 and 2001.[10][12][13]

From 1960, Læssøe also worked on the Scandinavian Joint Expedition to Sudanese Nubia,[1] serving as its field director in 1966–67.[3] In the latter part of his career, he authored several popular history books on Assyriology in Danish, including Fra Assyriens arkiver ("From the Archives of Assyria", 1960), Babylon (1966), and Assyriologien i Danmark ("Assyriology in Denmark", 1977).[3] His book The People of Ancient Assyria (1963) is regarded as his magnum opus.[5][14] Before his death in 1993, he was also preparing a section on Assyriology for Den Store Danske Encyklopædi.[1]

Læssøe retired in 1986 and died on 2 February 1993 after a prolonged bout of illness.[5] In an obituary, Læssøe's student Jesper Eidem highlighted his "peculiar devotion" to Assyriology: "Jørgen was a learned scholar of extraordinary intelligence and talent who insisted on the highest standard in his work, but who simultaneously refused to regard his profession as more than a schoolboy hobby in comparison with more pressing human and personal concerns."[5]

Læssøe married Herdis Elsie Aaberg, of Dwight, Illinois, in 1949. She died in 2007.[3]