3-053-530 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Inscribed stone, giving an account of the Deluge, 1873. George Smith of the British Museum presented Chaldean clay tablets from Nineveh, '...containing an account of the Deluge which...resembles that in the Book of Genesis. [They date from] the reign of Assurbanipal, King of Assyria about b.c. 668...The inscription has been deciphered and translated...a King named Izdubar...having been afflicted with sickness, goes to visit a famous sage called Sisit...This philosopher, instead of giving him any medicine, tells him about the flood. Sisit declares that to him, as to Noah, the gods revealed beforehand that approaching catastrophe of the world. He also was commanded to build a ship and to embark therein his family and the seed of all life...about the beginning of this year, Mr. George Smith went to the site of Nineveh, with six months' leave of absence from his official duties, by an arrangement between the trustees of the British Museum and the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph; the latter undertaking to pay the expenses of his making some researches among the ruins of the ancient Assyrian capital, while the British Museum was to get such monumental relics as Mr. Smith could procure and remove to England. His labours have been successful'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.