Miguel Civil

Miguel Civil (Miquel Civil i Desveus; May 7, 1926 – January 13, 2019) was an American Assyriologist and expert on Sumer and Ancient Mesopotamian studies at the University of Chicago Oriental Institute.

According to his colleague, Christopher Woods, at the time of his death, Civil knew the Sumerian language better than anyone since it was last spoken 4000 years ago.

He studied Sumerology in Paris and was associate researcher at the University of Pennsylvania from 1958 to 1963.

He was also associate director of studies of the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, epigraphist of the Nippur Expedition to Iraq, a member of the editorial board of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, and main editor of the series Materials for the Sumerian Lexicon (in which he published several volumes).

His main monographs include: The Farmer's Instructions: A Sumerian Agricultural Manual (Sabadell, 1994); The Early Dynastic Practical Vocabulary A (Archaic HAR-ra A) (Rome, 2008); and The Lexical texts in the Schøyen Collection (Bethesda, Md., 2010).