History of Sennacherib: Translated from the Cuneiform Inscriptions

The Assyriologist George Smith (1840–76) was trained originally as an engraver, but was enthralled by the discoveries of Layard and Rawlinson. He taught himself cuneiform script, and joined the British Museum as a 'repairer' of broken cuneiform tablets. Promotion followed, and after one of Smith's most significant discoveries among the material sent to the Museum - a Babylonian story of a great flood - he was sent to the Middle East, where he found more inscriptions which contained other parts of the epic tale of Gilgamesh. Before his early death in 1876, he had almost completed this work on the surviving cuneiform texts mentioning the famous Assyrian ruler Sennacherib: it was completed by A. H. Sayce and published in 1878. Each text or fragment is presented with a transliteration and translation, and notes by Smith put the material into context. Other works by Smith and Sayce are also reissued in this series.