Cast of the Flood Tablet 19th century, after 7th century BCE original This object is a modern version of the so-called Flood Tablet, a cuneiform-inscribed clay tablet which is an account of the deluge featured in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It was not cast from an ancient tablet but rather from a nineteenth-century interpretation based on multiple ancient fragments. Assyriologist Paul Haupt made the modern tablet in clay, basing its size and shape on an example held in the British Museum and reconstructed from several fragments ( + + + + Sm1881). The original was part of

Cast of the Flood Tablet 19th century, after 7th century BCE original This object is a modern version of the so-called Flood Tablet, a cuneiform-inscribed clay tablet which is an account of the deluge featured in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It was not cast from an ancient tablet but rather from a nineteenth-century interpretation based on multiple ancient fragments. Assyriologist Paul Haupt made the modern tablet in clay, basing its size and shape on an example held in the British Museum and reconstructed from several fragments ( + + + + Sm1881). The original was part of the Library of Ashurbanipal (r. ca. 669-631 ) at his palace in the Assyrian capital, Nineveh, in northern decipherment of the text caused a sensation in the late nineteenth century because of its similarity to the Flood story in the Book of Genesis. This modern Flood Tablet was available for purchase from the Johns Hopkins Press and examples are known in other North American institutions. They were intended to make cuneiform writing available to students who could not access the original clay the nineteenth century, many museums collected copies of ancient and historical works of art with the aim of presenting outstanding works to a broader public and to serve as inspiration for artists and manufacturers. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, founded in 1870, began to acquire casts in its first decade. In 1886-87, Henry Marquand, a collector and early patron of the Museum, funded a large purchase of sculptural plaster casts. Many casts of Assyrian reliefs discovered at Nimrud and Nineveh were exhibited with this tablet at The Met in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. View more. Cast of the Flood Tablet. 19th century, after 7th century BCE original. Plaster

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