Mythology & Mystery

In 1872, British Museum curator George Smith made a discovery that would shake Victorian England's understanding of biblical history. Working late into the London evening, surrounded by fragments of cuneiform tablets recovered from the ruins of Nineveh, Smith deciphered an ancient Mesopotamian account of a great flood—complete with an ark, animals saved in pairs, and a righteous man chosen to preserve life. But this wasn't the biblical narrative he'd learned as a child.