Our Republic’s Old Hand Muazzez İlmiye Çığ has a Message for Students!

Muazzez İlmiye Çığ was born on June, 20th 1914 just before World War I started. Her family is an immigrant from Crimea. Since her father wished her to be a scientist, she was named her ‘İlmiye’, which means scholar. 

She registered at Ankara University, Language and History Geography Faculty, Hittitology department. She studied Sumerian - Accadian - Hittite Languages with Mesopotamia Culture lessons from the professors who defected to Turkey from the Third Reich. After her graduation in 1940, she was assigned to İstanbul Ancient Orient Works Museum Cuneiform Scripts Archive as a specialist. During her 31 years of career at the museum, she cleaned and registered thousands of tablets engraved in Akkadian and Hittite Languages, established an archive of 74 cuneiform tablet documents, made copies of 3 thousand tablets and compiled a catalog. Though she resigned in 1972, she continued her studies.  

In 1988, she attended the Archaeology Congress in Philadelphia. She translated Professor Karmer’s book ‘History Begins at Sumer’ which was published in 1990 by the Turkish History Constitution with the title ‘History Begins with Sumerian’.