Igor Mikhailovich Diakonov (Игорь Михайлович Дьяконов in Russian) (born December 30, 1914 in Petrograd) is a Russian historian who should be ranked among the greatest authorities on Ancient East and its languages. December 30 is the 364th day of the year (365th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 1 day remaining. ... 1914 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... Saint Petersburg  listen (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and Petrograd (Петрогра́д, 1914–1924), is a city located in Northwestern Russia on the delta of the river Neva at the east end of the Gulf of...

Diakonov graduated from the Leningrad University in 1938 and joined the staff of the Hermitage Museum the same year. In 1949 he published a comprehensive study of Assyria, followed by the monograph on Media in 1956. Later, he teamed with the linguist Sergei Starostin to produce authoritative studies of the Caucasian, Afro-Asiatic and Hurro-Urartian languages. Categories: Russia-related stubs | Universities and colleges in Russia | Saint Petersburg ... 1938 was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Hermitage Museum (Эрмитаж) in St. ... 1949 is a common year starting on Saturday. ... Assyria in earliest historical times referred to a region on the Upper Tigris river, named for its original capital, the city of Ashur. ... 1956 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Dr. Sergei Starostin (Cyrillic: Серге́й Старо́стин) is a Russian historical linguist and scholar, best known for his work with proto-languages, and for his formulation of the Dene-Caucasian hypothesis. ... The term Caucasian languages is loosely used to refer to a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than 7 million people in the Caucasus region of Eastern Europe, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. ... Map showing the distribution of Afro-Asiatic languages The Afro-Asiatic languages are a language family of about 240 languages and 285 million people widespread throughout North Africa, East Africa, the Sahel, and Southwest Asia. ... The Hurro-Urartian languages are an extinct language family of the Ancient Near East, which comprises only two languages, Hurrian and Urartian (Asia Minor and the Caucasus). ...