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 was writing a history of Babylonia for the 'Ancient History from the Monuments' series. Prepared for press by A. H. Sayce, it was published in 1877. Smith traces the story of the Babylonian empire from mythical times ('before the deluge') to its conquest by Persia in the sixth century BCE. Several other books by Smith are also reissued in this series.
