3-053-531 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The site of Nineveh, from a sketch by Mr. George Smith, 1873. 'At a meeting of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, on Dec. 3, 1872, Mr. George Smith, of the British Museum, read a description of the newly-discovered Chaldean tablets brought from Nineveh, containing an account of the Deluge which in some points resembles that in the Book of Genesis. The date of these tablets is in the reign of Assurbanipal, King of Assyria about b.c. 668, but they are believed to be copies of more ancient tablets, which Mr. Smith would place as far back as b. c. 1000...about the beginning of this year, Mr. 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...We engrave a sketch by Mr. Smith, which gives a general view of the site of Nineveh, with the mounds of earth and stones called the Birs Nimroud, as seen from the top of the Khan Baleos, near Mosul [in modern-day Iraq]'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.