“One of the most famous finds from [Ashurbanipal's] library is The Epic of Gilgamesh ... Thought to have been written in Babylon around 1700 BC but based on Sumerian poems centuries older ..., it describes a young, arrogant ruler—inspired by a real king of Uruk from the third millennium BC―who gains wisdom thru a desperate, doomed search for immortality. ... Gilgamesh caused a sensation ... because it includes a version of the Biblical tale of Noah and the Flood, written centuries before ... Genesis.”