Gilgamesh Tablet XI
Between 1845 and 1851 CE, Sir Austen Henry Layard uncovered the cuneiform library of King Assurbanipal in Nineveh. These texts, most of which dated to the 7th century BCE, were brought back to the British Museum where they were translated and catalogued. In 1872 George Smith discovered that on one broken tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh, a story was recorded that had many similarities to the biblical flood story in Genesis 6-9. Smith announced his remarkable findings at the Society of Biblical Archaeology meeting in London on December 3, 1872.
The following year, Smith went to Nineveh in hopes of finding a more complete version of this story. In one of the most amazing tales of archaeological success, after only five days, he found exactly what he was looking for: Tablet XI of the Gilgamesh Epic.
The parallels between Tablet XI and the story of Noah are too numerous to be coincidental: a righteous man (Utnapishtim and Noah) was told to build a boat and fill it with his family and representatives of all animals in order to survive a flood that would kill everything not onboard. When the waters began to reside, both Noah and Utnapishtim released three birds, and sacrificed when they debarked. While the text Smith discovered dates to the 7th century BCE, subsequent discoveries showed that the Mesopotamian versions of the flood story were much older than the biblical account.
The version of Tablet XI discovered by Smith now resides at the British Museum.
Dude! Wanna read a translation of Gilgamesh Tablet XI?