Film Center “Georgian film – Abkhazeti” Chavchavadze Av.33, 0179 Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

Mikheil Tsereteli was born on December 3, 1878 in one of the small villages of Georgia in an aristocratic family which was related to the Georgian Royal family. After finishing the Kutaisi Classical Gymnasium, he studied at the University of Kiev and from 1901 in Sorbonne. Later he mastered the history and culture of the ancient oriental people first in London and Leipzig and finally at Heidelberg University where in 1914 he received a PhD degree in Assyriology.

In Heidelberg, he created his work “Sumerian and Georgian” which was printed in 1912 in Tbilisi and published in the years of 1913-1916 in several issues of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland under the following title: “Sumerian and Georgian: A Study in Comparative Philology.” In 1928 by the initiative of Heidelberg Academy of Sciences his “Die neuen Haldischen Inschriften König Sardurs von Urartu” was published. In 1933 the popular scientific-orientalist publication of “Revie dʹ Assyriologie et dʹarcheologie orientale” issued his “La stele de Kelishine” about the deciphering of the Assyrian-Urartian cuneiform bilingual inscription. The research appeared to be a turning point in the studies of the Urartian language and culture which brought the author worldwide fame. Subsequently, “Revie dʹ Assyriologie” published Mikheil Tsereteli’s well-known “Urartian Etudes” and his other research works. In 1922-1923 the scientist was a professor at the University of Brussels and in 1933-1945 led the academic department of Assyriology and the Georgian language at Humboldt University of Berlin.

Mikheil Tsereteli died in Munich, Germany on March 2, 1965.