Starting with Layard’s excavations of 1845–51 on the Tigris opposite Mosul, the British Museum’s Keeper of Assyrian antiquities tells how the libraries of Nebo and of Ashur-bani-pal were dug out of Nineveh, and how George Smith recognised a flood story on a clay tablet. Translations follow of the Babylonian deluge legend, the version of Berosus, and the eleventh tablet of the Epic of Gilgamish.
A compact account of one of archaeology’s great discoveries, with the ancient flood narrative itself, line by line. Download the free EPUB.