George Smith's revolutionary book, "The Chaldean Account of the Deluge" (1872), reports the finding of an ancient Babylonian account of the flood event, identical to the biblical legend of Noah's Ark. Smith's translation of this account, based on cuneiform tablets from Nineveh, was one of the first to demonstrate a widespread flood myth in ancient Mesopotamian civilization, emphasizing the parallels between the biblical event and ancient Near Eastern beliefs.