Smith, GEORGE

Smith, GEORGE, Assyriologist, was born of humble parentage in London on 26th March 1840. Whilst pursuing his trade of bank-note engraver he found means to study the cuneiform inscriptions in the British Museum, and through the kindly notice and assistance of Sir Henry Rawlinson and Dr Birch was in 1867 appointed an assistant in the department of antiquities in that museum. He helped the former to prepare the third volume of Cuneiform Inscriptions (1870), and through his skill as an interpreter of the Assyrian monumental writing not only was able to fix the dates of important events in the history of the East, but discovered the Chaldæan Account of the Deluge (1872). He likewise furnished (1871) the key to the interpretation of the Cypriote character and script. In 1872 he was sent by the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph to Nineveh in quest of discoveries; the collections he brought home were presented to the nation. The British Museum commissioned him (1873) to return and complete the excavations he had begun amongst the ruin-mounds of ancient Assyria, an account of which expedition, entitled Assyrian Discoveries, was published in 1875 (7th ed. 1883). Whilst on a third visit to the same regions he suddenly died at Aleppo, in Syria, on 19th August 1876. Besides the books quoted, he wrote Annals of Assurbanipal (1871), perhaps his most important publication; History of Assyria (1875); Eponym Cauon (1875), a work on oriental chronology; History of Babylon (ed. Professor Sayce, 1877); History of Sennacherib (ed. Professor Sayce, 1878); and papers contributed to Translations of Biblical Archaeology and the first series of Records of the Past.