George Smith (assyriologist)

George Smith ( born March 26, 1840 in London, † August 19, 1876 in Aleppo ) was a pioneer English Assyriologist. The discovery and first translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest surviving literary seals of mankind is attributed to him.

Life

Smith was born to a working-class family in Victorian England, which ascend its possibilities and to achieve a higher education despite its limited capabilities. At the age of 14, he excelled at his training as an engraver of bank notes in a print shop. In his rare free time, he became increasingly fascinated by the Assyrian culture and history and began with the reading of all available publications. As he worked in the printing business, to support his wife and children, his interest was so great that he often spent the lunch break in the British Museum with the study of cuneiform tablets. These were excavated by Austen Henry Layard and his Iraqi assistant Hormuzd Rassam during an expedition in 1840 near Mosul and later taken to the British Museum.

Smith was soon more expertise than the staff of the museum and he caught the attention of the then leading Assyriologists Henry Rawlinson. Smith then made ​​his first important discovery, the dating of the tribute of Jehu to Shalmaneser III .. Rawlinson suggested the trustees of the British Museum before that Smith was to participate in the preparations for the third and fourth edition of The Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia. 1867 Smith was appointed Assistant Professor in the Assyrian Department.

The first success of Smith was the discovery of two inscriptions. In one of the date of a total solar eclipse in the month of Sivan was set in May 763 BC, in the other the date of invasion by the Elamites in Babylonia. 1872 Smith gained worldwide fame through his translation of the Chaldean report on the Flood. Today the report is known as the final chapter of the epic of Gilgamesh, as its discoverer, he is. In January 1873 the editor of the Daily Telegraph sponsored a trip by Smith to Nineveh. The goal was excavations to find the missing fragments of the report of the Flood. The trip was not only to find some of the missing panels, but also of fragments which documented the success and duration of the Babylonian dynasty. In November 1873, he continued the excavations continued at the expense of the museum.

On another trip in March In 1876 Smith in Ikisji, a small town about 100 km north-east of Aleppo, of dysentery. On August 19, he died from the effects of the disease.

Publications by George Smith

• Assyrian Discoveries. London 1875.
• Assyrian Discoveries. An Account of Explorations and Discoveries on the Site of Nineveh, falling on 1873 and 1874. Adamant Media Corporation, 2001, ISBN 1-4021-5571-9.