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The Gilgamesh Epic. Sometimes the best finds occur after an excavation. That was the case with this broken cuneiform tablet containing a portion of the Mesopotamian narrative known as the Gilgamesh Epic. A shepherd discovered this fragment in a dump of excavated soil after the University of Chicago team had completed its work in 1939. Scholars assign it to the Late Bronze Age (c. 1550–1200 B.C.E.); its presence may indicate a scribal school at Megiddo. When another tablet bearing a portion of the epic was first made public in 1872, the discovery created a sensation because the epic, which pre-dates the Bible, includes a flood account similar to that in Genesis.