A. R. Hilliard

Alan Ralph Millard (1937–2024) was an eminent British orientalist and academic who specialized in Hebrew and Ancient Semitic languages. Over a distinguished career, he served as the Rankin Professor of Hebrew and Ancient Semitic languages at the University of Liverpool, where he was later named an Honorary Senior Fellow. Millard's scholarly pursuits bridged the fields of archaeology, epigraphy, and biblical studies, with a particular focus on the ancient Near East.

Throughout his career, Millard participated in numerous archaeological excavations across the Middle East, including key sites such as Petra in Jordan, Nimrud in Iraq, and Tell Nebi Mend and Tell Rif'at in Syria. While working at the British Museum in the early 1960s, he made a major archival discovery by identifying the Epic of Atrahasis, a Babylonian creation and flood myth that had lain unrecognized in a museum drawer for decades. He also held positions as a librarian at Tyndale House in Cambridge and taught Akkadian at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Millard's research was deeply concerned with Semitic epigraphy, ancient scribal practices, and the editing of Akkadian cuneiform tablets and Aramaic inscriptions. As an Evangelical Christian, he advocated for the essential historicity of the Bible, a perspective that informed his academic interest in the preservation and transmission of ancient texts. He was an active member of several academic bodies, including the Society of Antiquaries of London and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq.