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completed the second column. He then found and reassembled additional, overlapping cop-
ies that filled in the sixth column and nearly completed the first column. It was like multiple
editions of the same topic. Further investigative work turned up more fragments, nearly
completing an account of a great flood.
Surprisingly, the story paralleled the biblical story. The mighty King Izdubar had
conquered monsters and united the feuding kingdoms between the Tigres and Euphrates
but fell ill in old age. Fearing man's last enemy, death, he sought out Sisit (later translated
as Utnapishtim), the immortal survivor of the great flood the gods sent to destroy humanity.
Warned of an impending flood, Sisit built a ship and caulked it with bitumen before loading
his family and animals aboard to ride it out. After seven days and nights they ran aground
on a mountainside and Sisit sent out a dove, a swallow, and finally a raven to search for dry
ground.
While this ancient cuneiform narrative was similar to the more recent biblical story,
Smith saw more differences between the two stories than just the number of days and nights
of rain (seven versus forty). The Mesopotamian story alluded to a maritime tradition. The
ark was called a ship. It had a pilot wise enough to take it on a trial voyage before the flood
arrived. In contrast, the biblical story suggested inland authors unfamiliar with seafaring.
The biblical ark was simply described as a great box. Did the Babylonian and Hebrew stor-
ies represent different versions of the same events? Or was the biblical flood a reworking
of the Babylonian story?
On December 3, 1872, Smith presented his findings to the Society of Biblical Archae-
ology, sharing the stage with the prime minister and the dean of Westminster. His lecture
captivated scholars and the general public alike. Newspapers trumpeted the discovery of a
prebiblical source for the biblical flood story. Immediately after his presentation, the Daily
Telegraph offered Smith the princely sum of a thousand guineas to search for more tablets
at Ashurbanipal's ruined library. The British Museum jumped at this publicity bonanza,
granting Smith six months' leave.
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