...of the legend he had hoped to find there, he said, " I am the first man to read that after more than two thousand years of oblivion." Setting the tablet...astonishment of those present, began to undress himself ! Not the least of the services rendered to Assyriology by Ready was his invention of the process by...

...of the legend he had hoped to find there, he said, "I am the first man to read that after more than two thousand years of oblivion." Setting the tablet...astonishment of those present, began to undress himself! (153) Word of his find spread rapidly, and Prime Minister Gladstone was in the audience when Smith...

...thousand years of oblivion." EA Wallis Budge tells of Smith's exuberance in that moment of discovery: "Setting the tablet on the table, he jumped up and...the astonishment of those present, began to undress himself!"14 Sometime later, Smith presented his findings in a more scholarly fashion (and proper attirel...

...more than two thousand years of oblivion!' Setting the tablet on the table," the account continues, "he jumped up and rushed about the room in a great...astonishment of those present, began to undress himself." We aren't told if he took off just his coat or if he continued to strip down further. I like to imagine...

...sent a raven, which did not return, and he knew the floods had subsided. On reading the tablet, Smith "jumped up and rushed about the room in a great state...astonishment of those present, began to undress himself." Quite apart from being an understandable cause of extreme excitement, this was proof positive that...

...thousand years of oblivion." A fellow Assyriologist recounted how Smith set a tablet down on the table and "jumped up and rushed about the room in a great state...astonishment of those present, began to undress himself." This spontaneous shedding of garments was unconsciously symbolic. Just as he revealed his own nakedness,...

...of the legend he had hoped to find there, he said, 'I am the first man to read that after more than two thousand years of oblivion.' Setting the tablet...astonishment of those present, began to undress himself!" There is no way to know how far this disrobing actually went; Smith makes no mention of it in his own...

...sensitive man got so excited by his discovery that he "[set] the tablet on the table, he jumped up and down and rushed about the room in a great state of excitement,...the astonishment of those present, began to undress himself!"3 From then on the advancement of Assyriology has been nothing but astonishing, most recently...