on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of George Smith’s Publication of the Flood Tablet
Twenty-eighth Workshop of the Melammu Project
Sofia
7 November 2026
Organiser: Zozan Tarhan
In 1876, George Smith finished a manuscript, which was published the same year, before what would turn out to be his final departure to the Orient. This book contained his greatest discovery, made in November of 1872: a Mesopotamian version of the Flood story, which closely paralleled the story known from the Old Testament. G. Smith chose to publish the Flood story not in isolation, but side by side with other texts from cuneiform tablets, which he considered to be part of a narrative complex that he called “The Chaldean Account of Genesis.” This Melammu Workshop celebrates the 150th anniversary of the publication of this trailblazing book by discussing its history and methodology, and by further pursuing lines of research that G. Smith defined 150 years ago, namely the comparative study of the Flood myth.
