Bedřich Hrozný

Bedřich Hrozný (1879-1952), Czech archaeologist and Orientalist, born in Leszno, Poland, and educated at the universities of Prague, Vienna, Berlin, and London. He made his earliest field trip in 1904 in northern Palestine. The following year he began to teach at Vienna University, and in 1919 he was appointed professor of cuneiform research and ancient Oriental history at Charles University in Prague. Hrozný's name is most closely associated with deciphering the Hittite language and proving that it is a member of the Indo-European language group. He wrote his first translations and analyses of the language in 1915, basing them upon archaeological finds in the cuneiform script made by the German archaeologist Hugo Winckler and the German Oriental Society. Although Hrozný's claims were long attacked, his success in deciphering new texts and the support he received from eminent scientists eventually won acceptance of his conclusions.