Dreaming of an International Discipline - Archibald H. Sayce, Cosmopolitanism and Assyriology at Oxford

A recent study of the unpublished papers of Archibald H. Sayce kept at The Queen's College and other Oxford institutions has disclosed an impressive collection of documents which, inter alia, illustrates his cosmopolitan attitude towards Assyriological studies during the late Victorian and Edwardian era. Of particular interest in his correspondence are the letters that Sayce received from prominent German colleagues such as Friedrich Delitzsch, Fritz Hommel, Paul Haupt and Eduard Meyer before and after his appointment to the first Oxford chair of Assyriology in 1891. The aim of this paper is to highlight some of the main topics dealt with in these letters, against the background of the changing relationships between the British and German orientalist milieux before the First World War.