 Rykle Borger had been the assistant to Wolfram von Soden during the latter's work on "Das Akkadische Handwörterbuch" (AHW), one of the foundational works of modern Assyriological philology.This experience led Borger to think of himself as a foundational philologist, and his lifelong commitment was to creating detailed and accurate reference works to support and advance the discipline of Assyriology.At Göttingen, Borger trained a number of notable students, Professors Stefan Maul (University of Heidelberg), and Andreas Fuchs (University of Tübingen), among them.