entitled: Mount Nisir and the Foundations of the Assyrian Church, argues that the Christian church was "..built on foundations laid by Assyria..", and that "..the continuity and survival of Assyrian ideas in Christianity must be taken seriously.". He comes to this conclusion by assessing what he considers to be parallels in both Christianity and the ancient Mesopotamian religion, and states that Assyriologists generally avoid and reject the belief structure and central components in regards to ancient Mesopotamia. Academic honours Finnish Professor of the Year, 1992. J. V. Snellman Public Information Award of the University of Helsinki, 1996. Honorary Member of the American Oriental Society, 2001. Honorary Member of the Finnish Science Center, Heureka, 2003. Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1995. Works Books Etymological Dictionary of the Sumerian Language I-II. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2016. (Editor-in-chief) Assyrian-English-Assyrian Dictionary. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2008. (with Michael Porter) The Helsinki Atlas of the Ancient Near East in the Neo-Assyrian Period. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2001. (with Veysel Donbaz) Neo-Assyrian Legal Texts in Istanbul. Studien zu den Assur-Texten, Bd. 2. Saarbücken: Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft, 2001. (with Andreas Fuchs) The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part III: Letters from Media and Babylonia. State Archives of Assyria 15. Helsinki University Press, 2001. Assyrian Prophecies. State Archives of Assyria 9. Helsinki University Press, 1997. The Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts 1. Helsinki: The Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1997. Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian Scholars. State Archives of Assyria 10. Helsinki University Press, 1993. (With T. Kwasman) Legal Transactions of the Royal Court of Nineveh, Part I: Tiglath-Pileser III through Esarhaddon. State Archives of Assyria 6. Helsinki University Press, 1991. (With G. B. Lanfranchi) The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part II: Letters from the Northern and Northeastern Provinces. State Archives of Assyria 5. Helsinki University Press, 1990. (With Kazuko Watanabe) Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths. State Archives of Assyria 2. Helsinki University Press, 1988. The Correspondence of Sargon II, Part I: Letters from Assyria and the West. State Archives of Assyria 1. Helsinki University Press, 1987. Letters from Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal, Part II: Commentary and Appendices. Alter Orient und Altes Testament 5/2, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Butzon & Bercker, 1983. Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets in the British Museum, Part 53: Neo-Assyrian Letters from the Kuyunjik Collection. London, 1979. (With A. Parpola and S. Koskenniemi) A Concordance