Epic of Gilgamesh
The "Epic of Gilgamesh" was discovered by Austen Henry Layard, Hormuzd Rassam, and W. K. Loftus in 1853. The central character of Gilgamesh was initially reintroduced to the world as ""Izdubar"", before the cuneiform logographs in his name could be pronounced accurately. The first modern translation was published in the early 1870s by George Smith. Smith then made further discoveries of texts on his later expeditions, which culminated in his final translation which is given in his book "The Chaldaean Account of Genesis" (1880).
Enûma Eliš
Clay tablets containing inscriptions relating to analogues of biblical stories were discovered by A.H. Layard, Hormuzd Rassam, and George Smith in the ruins of the Palace and Library of Ashur-bani-pal (668-626 BC) during excavations at the mound of Kuyunjik, Nineveh (near Mosul) between 1848 and 1876. Smith worked through Rassam's find of ~20,000 fragments from 1852, and identified references to the kings Shalmaneser II, Tiglath-Pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and other rulers mentioned in the Bible - furthermore he discovered versions of a Babylonian deluge myth (see Gilgamesh flood myth), as well as creation myths.