Eleanor Robson facts for kids

Eleanor Robson, FBA (born 1969) is a British historian who studies ancient Mesopotamia, a very old region in the Middle East. She is an expert in Assyriology, which is the study of the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, like the Assyrians and Babylonians. She is a Professor of Ancient Middle Eastern History at University College London. She also used to lead the British Institute for the Study of Iraq and was a special researcher at All Souls College, Oxford. She is a Fellow of the British Academy, which is a big honor for experts in humanities and social sciences.

Her Early Life and Studies

Eleanor Robson was born in 1969. She loved numbers and studied mathematics at the University of Warwick, graduating in 1990. Later, she continued her studies at the University of Oxford. In 1995, she earned her PhD degree. Her special research was about ancient Babylonian math, looking at how people used numbers in Mesopotamia between 2100 and 1600 BC.

Her Work and Discoveries

After her studies, Dr. Robson worked as a research fellow at All Souls College, Oxford from 2000 to 2003. She then joined the University of Cambridge from 2004 to 2013, where she focused on the history and philosophy of science.

Dr. Robson has written many books about the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia and the history of mathematics. In 2003, she won an award for her work on a famous clay tablet called Plimpton 322. This tablet is from ancient Babylonia. People used to think it was a complex math table for trigonometry. However, Dr. Robson showed that it was likely a collection of school exercises. These exercises helped students solve problems involving right-angled triangles.

She has also spoken out about the importance of protecting historical items. She criticized the failure to prevent the looting of the National Museum of Iraq in 2003. This museum held many priceless artifacts from ancient times. Her message was that we must protect these treasures for future generations.

From 2012 to 2017, Dr. Robson was the head of the Council for the British Institute for the Study of Iraq. This group helps people study and understand Iraq's rich history and culture.

Awards and Special Recognition

In 2011, Eleanor Robson received the prestigious Pfizer Award from the History of Science Society. She won this award for her book titled Mathematics in Ancient Iraq: A Social History. This book explains the mathematical ideas from ancient Mesopotamia and how they fit into society.

In June 2017, she was a visiting lecturer at the Collège de France in Paris. This is a very old and respected institution for research and teaching.

In 2022, she was chosen as a Fellow of the British Academy. This is a high honor that recognizes her important contributions to the study of ancient history and mathematics.

Books She Has Written

Dr. Robson has written or helped write several important books. Here are some of them:

• Mesopotamian Mathematics, 2100–1600 BC: Technical Constants in Bureaucracy and Education (1999). This book explores how ancient Babylonians used special numbers, like a way to estimate pi, in their daily work and schools.
• The History of Mathematical Tables: From Sumer to Spreadsheets (2003). She co-edited this book, which looks at how mathematical tables have been used throughout history, starting from ancient Sumer.
• The Literature of Ancient Sumer (2006). With other experts, she helped create this book, which shares many stories and poems from ancient Sumerian literature.
• Mathematics in Ancient Iraq: A Social History (2008). This book is for everyone, explaining the math ideas from ancient Mesopotamia and how they were used in society over 3,000 years.
• The Oxford Handbook of the History of Mathematics (2009). She co-edited this large book, which contains many articles about the history of mathematics from different parts of the world and different time periods.