Sidney Smith (29 August 1889 – 12 June 1979) was an Assyriologist (both a linguist and archeologist) who has been described as the architect of Mesopotamian studies.
[1][2] He was born in Leeds, 29 August 1889, studied in City of London School, and went to Queens' College, Cambridge on a Classical Exhibition.
[3] His life's work focussed on Semitic philology, political geography and Mesopotamian archaeology.
He was appointed to the British Museum in 1914, but took up his post in 1919, eventually becoming the Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities (1931–48).
[3] He retired from British Museum on grounds of ill-health in 1948, but then immediately took up the Chair of Ancient Semitic Languages and Civilization at University College London.