Markham J. Geller: An Appreciation
Ideally a Festschrift should mirror a scholar’s character and abilities in the range and content of the specially written papers contributed by peers and colleagues. The thirty-four brand-new papers collected in this celebratory volume in honour of Mark Geller fulfil this task admirably.
In Mark we have a colleague of rare qualities. A man comfortable in and working with Latin and Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, Phoenician and Syriac, Sumerian and Babylonian and a bundle of miscellaneous Slavonic and European languages, at once gifted and perceptive scholar, inspiring and enthusiastic teacher, and a veritable catalyst in bringing colleagues together to collaborate ending with results. What we might call the Berlin School of Assyriological Medicine is his brainchild, deftly shepherded through the shadowy valleys of administration, grant application and funding into functional, effective existence. Hand-picked colleagues now pool knowledge and expertise in battling the hardest texts together in harmony under his baton, with the sole intention of producing the best possible results. This is a great achievement with consequences that will endure.
The present writer is proud to acknowledge with affection more than 40 years of the closest kind of friendship with M.J.G., laced with endless textual argy-bargy and the combative scrutiny of wedges. Long may works flow from his pen!
Irving L. Finkel