The below message was related to us by David Kertai (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden):
With profound sorrow, we mourn the passing of our friend and colleague, Frans Wiggermann, who passed away Wednesday morning, March 6, at the age of 76. Born in Amsterdam in 1948, Wiggermann studied ancient Near Eastern languages and religions at the Free University of Amsterdam, where he would work as a lecturer from 1973 until his retirement in 2005.
Frans was a leading scholar in the study of Mesopotamian myths, monsters, religion, medicine, and their iconographies. His work was epitomised by its comprehensive nature, the integration of textual and visual sources, and a search for the underlying principles and interconnectedness of the subjects he investigated. His approach comes to the fore in his early monograph Mesopotamian Protective Spirits: The Ritual Texts (1992), which has become a classic in the field, and in his later articles, many of which were written for the Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie. From 1993 onwards, Wiggermann was involved as the epigraphist of the archaeological excavations at Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria, leading to a focus on the Middle Assyrian period.
An almost complete bibliography, and a more extensive biography, can be found in the 2013 Festschrift that was dedicated to him: From the Four Corners of the Earth. Studies in Iconography and Cultures of the Ancient Near East in Honour of F. A. M. Wiggermann (AOAT 441).
The funeral will take place on Friday 15 March at 12.30 hrs (CET) at De Nieuwe Ooster in Amsterdam. There will be opportunity to say goodbye to Frans on Wednesday 11 March at 19.00 hrs at that same location. Condolences can be sent to his daughter Eva Wiggermann.
