Academic Bio
Theo van den Hout received his PhD in Hittite and Anatolian Languages from the University of Amsterdam in 1989 after a BA and MA in Classics, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, and Anatolian Studies at both Leiden and Amsterdam. Currently he is the Arthur and Joann Rasmussen Professor of Western Civilization and of Hittite and Anatolian Languages at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, and chief-editor of the Chicago Hittite Dictionary (CHD). He is the author of several books, most recently The Elements of Hittite (Cambridge UP 2011) and A History of Hittite Literacy: Writing and Reading in Late Bronze Age Anatolia 1650-1200 BC (Cambridge UP 2020). Theo is a corresponding member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences, a 2016 Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation as well as a Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University.
While interested in all aspects of Late Bronze and Iron Age Anatolia his recent personal interests are ancient record management, literacy and writing, and visual culture in Hittite society.
Recent Publications
A History of Hittite Literacy: Writing and Reading in Late Bronze-Age Anatolia (1650–1200 BC)
Recent & Regularly Taught Courses
- AANL 20125-20126 Advanced Readings: Hittite I-II
- NEHC 20005 Ancient Near Eastern Thought&Literature: Hittite Literature
- AANL 20901 Hurrian
- AANL 10101-02-03 Elementary Hittite
- AANL 20150 Art and Iconography of the Hittite Kingdom
- AANL 20203 Hieroglyphic Luwian 2nd Millenium BC