On 3 December 1872, George Smith, a former banknote engraver turned assyriologist at the British Museum, announced to the Society of Biblical Archaeology in London that he had read a clay tablet from the library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh describing a great flood sent by the gods and a man who built a boat and saved his family and animals. The tablet belonged to the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian poem about a king of Uruk, composed in its earliest Sumerian forms around 2100 BC. The prime minister, William Gladstone, attended the lecture. The epic is the oldest great work of literature and its flood story predates the Bible's by many centuries.
Before and after
- 16 July 1872Birth of Roald Amundsen
- 15 August 1872Birth of Aurobindo Ghosh
- 30 November 1872First match of the England men's national association football team
- 30 November 1872The first international football match is played
- 3 December 1872George Smith reads the Babylonian flood story
- from 7 December 1872 to 26 May 1876Challenger Expedition
- 1873Invention of electrical generator
- 1873Founding of Swiss Stock Exchange
- 9 January 1873Death of Napoleon III
More in Civilizations & archaeology
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- from 8 February 1861 to 1 May 1865Confederate States of America
- from 17 March 1861 to 18 June 1946Kingdom of Italy
- from 3 January 1868 to 3 May 1947Empire of Japan
- from 23 October 1868 to 30 July 1912Meiji era
The era
This moment belongs to the Industrial era (1760 CE to 1914 CE), steam, factories and revolutions. You can also browse everything in the 19th century.