Arno Poebel

He studied theology and classical philology in Heidelberg, Marburg, Zürich and Jena.

He taught at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore during 1911 to 1913, editing further Sumerian texts at the Pennsylvania Museum during 1912 to 1914.

Among his most important finds was discovering and translating the flood story of the Eridu Genesis in the collection of cuneiform tablets recovered from digs at Sippur and stored at the University of Pennsylvania.

This tablet, dated from c.1700-1600 BC, is the earliest known version of the various forms of flood myth from Mesopotamia.

Poebel emigrated to the United States in 1928, becoming professor of Assyriology and Sumerology at the University of Chicago Oriental Institute in 1930.