Amélie Kuhrt FBA (born 1944) is a historian and specialist in the history of the ancient Near East.

A professor at University College London, she specialises in the social, cultural and political history of the region from c.3000-100 BC, especially the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian and Seleucid empires. She was co-organiser of the Achaemenid History Workshops from 1983 to 1990. In 1997, her book The Ancient Near East : c.3000-330 BC was awarded the annual American History Association's James Henry Breasted Prize for the best book in English on any field of history prior to the year 1000 AD.

Kuhrt was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2001. She is currently a member of the British Academy's Projects Committee, which is responsible for assessing the scope for new projects and initiatives sponsored by the Academy.

Selected books

• The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources of the Achaemenid Period. London: Routledge, 2007. ISBN 0415436281

• The Ancient Near East : c.3000-330 BC. London : Routledge, 1995. ISBN 0415013534 (v.1), ISBN 0415128722 (v.2)

• Images of women in Antiquity. With Averil Cameron. London : Routledge, 1993. ISBN 0415090954

Selected articles

• "Ancient Near Eastern History: The Case of Cyrus the Great of Persia", in H. G. M. Williamson (ed), Understanding the History of Ancient Israel. OUP/British Academy 2007. ISBN 0197264018, pp. 107-127

• "Cyrus the Great of Persia: Images and Realities", in M. Heinz & M. H. Feldman (eds), Representations of Political Power: Case Histories from Times of Change and Dissolving Order in the Ancient Near East, pp. 174-175. Eisenbrauns, 2007. ISBN 157506135X

• "The Problem of Achaemenid Religious Policy", in B. Groneberg & H. Spieckermann (eds.), Die Welt der Gotterbilder, Walter de Gruyter, 2007, pp. 117-142

• "Sennacherib's Siege of Jerusalem", in A.K. Bowman et al. (eds) Representations of Empire: Rome and the Mediterranean World, pp. 13 - 33. OUP/British Academy 2004. ISBN 0197262767

• "The Achaemenid Persian empire (c. 550-c. 330 BCE): continuities, adaptations, transformations", in S.E. Alcock et al. (eds.), Empires: perspectives from archaeology and history, Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 93-123

• "Women and War", Journal of Gender Studies in Antiquity 2 (1) (2001) 1 - 25

• "The Persian Kings and their subjects: A unique relationship?", Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, vol.96 no.2 (2001), pp. 165-172

• "Israelite and Near Eastern historiography," in A. Lemaire & M. Saebo (eds), Vetus Testamentum Supplementum 80 (2000), pp. 257-279

• "Usurpation, conquest and ceremonial: From Babylon to Persia", in D. Cannadine, S. Price (eds), Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 20-55

• "Babylonia from Cyrus to Xerxes", in John Boardman (ed), The Cambridge Ancient History: Vol IV - Persia, Greece and the Western Mediterranean, p. 124. Cambridge University Press, 1982. ISBN 0521228042

• "The Cyrus Cylinder and Achaemenid imperial policy", Journal of Studies of the Old Testament 25 (1983), pp. 83-97