1893.] Legends of the Sumiro-Accadians of Chaldea. 17 
for years in the British Museum untouched and unnoticed. 
George Smith, a young archeologist whose devotion to science 
and untiring industry and patience enabled him to undertake 
—and to succeed in—an apparently impossible task, deter- 
mined not only to arrange and engrave the cuneiform texts ' 
on the tablets, but to read them, and this he succeeded in 
doing. The result was something astonishing. A series of 
twelve tablets was brought to light containing an epic poem 
of the highest antiquity and interest, the one alluded to fur- 
ther on, containing the earliest versions of the great Sun, 
Moon and Earth myths, of the Deluge, of Bel and the Dragon 
and of the Creation of the world. Fragments, of course, were 
missing, and to seek these George Smith was sent (by the gener- 
osity of the owners of The London Daily Telegraph) to search 
the Archive Chambers at Koyun-jik, and by inconceivable 
good fortune, found many of the missing pieces. On his sec- 
ond visit to Chaldea he fell a victim to plague. His last legi- 
ble words were worthy of a martyr to science. “Not so well. 
If doctor present I should recover, but he has not come; if 
fatal, farewell to . . . My work has been entirely for the 
science I study. ‘There isa large field for study in my collec- 
tion. I intended to work it out, but desire now that my 
antiquities and notes may be thrown open to all students. I 
have done my duty thoroughly. I do not fear the change, 
but desire to live for my family.” 
Besides the tablets containing the epic poem, two hundred 
tablets divided into three books were found at Nineveh, fifty 
of which have been deciphered. The contents of these also 
are supremely interesting; one book, the oldest, reveals the 
Shamanitie stage of the Sumiro-Accadian religion; a stage in 
which many Turanian tribes still remain. It treats of “evil 
spirits” with which earth, sky and the “abyss” under the 
earth were conceived to be filled; of sorcerers who could 
employ the power of the evil spirits for the destruction of 
mankind, and of magicians who understood incantations and 
spells capable of driving away these malignant powers, 
answering to the “ black” and “white” magic of the Middle 
"La Magie et la Divination chez les Chaldeérs. François Lenormant. 
2 
