The Chaldean Account of Genesis (Revised Edition) (ca. 1880)

Description

Smith, George, revised by A. H. Sayce. The Chaldean account of Genesis containing the description of the creation, the deluge, the tower of Babel, the destruction of Sodom, the times of the patriarchs, and Nimrod, Babylon fables, and the legends of the gods : from the cuneiform inscriptions (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, ND) ca. 1880

Octavo. 337 pages. Bound in brown cloth covered beveled boards with a mesopotamian figure in gilt impressed on front cover, gilt title on spine.  Illustrated throughout. Frontispiece appears to be a photograph pasted in.

Good, shows heavy wear on edges and top and bottom of spine.  pages not yet brittle but showing signs of becoming so.  Binding broken. Not Ex-Library, has previous owner’s info on first blank page and title page.

WorldCat shows only one copy in libraries throughout the world.

WikiPedia: George Smith (Chelsea, London 26 March 1840 – 19 August 1876), was a pioneering English Assyriologist who first discovered and translated the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest-known written works of literature.

In 1872, Smith achieved worldwide fame by his translation of the Chaldaean account of the Great Flood, which he read before the Society of Biblical Archaeology on 3 December and whose audience included the Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone.

This work is better known today as the eleventh tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest known works of literature. The following January, Edwin Arnold, the editor of The Daily Telegraph, arranged for Smith to go to Nineveh at the expense of that newspaper and carry out excavations with a view to finding the missing fragments of the Flood story. This journey resulted not only in the discovery of some missing tablets, but also of fragments that recorded the succession and duration of the Babylonian dynasties.

In November 1873 Smith again left England for Nineveh for a second expedition, this time at the expense of the Museum, and continued his excavations at the tell of Kouyunjik (Nineveh). An account of his work is given in Assyrian Discoveries, published early in 1875. The rest of the year was spent in fixing together and translating the fragments relating to the creation, the results of which were published in The Chaldaean Account of Genesis (1880, co-written with Archibald Sayce).