George Smith (1840–1876), a self-taught Assyriologist, was the first to discover and translate what is possibly the world’s oldest literary work, the Epic of Gilgamesh, which he found in the relics of ancient clay tablets, gatekeepers of the tales of Mesopotamia’s mythological heroes Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Artist Julie Green responds to the epic saga with a series of drawings accompanied by the The Buried Book, another treasured record of the illustrations and fragmentary nature of the original translation by Smith in 1875.
Julie Green, Destruction of Humbaba, 2021, paint and drawing media on paper, 130 × 95.5cm. Courtesy the artist and Annette Larkin Fine Art, Sydney
Annette Larkin Fine Art
19 to 30 April 2022
Sydney
