Abstract
Jules Oppert's name is associated above all with the sites of Khorsabad and Babylon, due to his participation from 1851 to 1855 in the "scientific and artistic expedition to Mesopotamia and Media" led by Fulgence Fresnel. Yet the texts of Nineveh played a major role in his deciphering of Assyrian. We will examine in turn his "Scientific Mission to England" of 1855 and the use he made of Roger Fenton's photographs from 1857 onwards; his subsequent exploitation of the treasures of the British Museum (1861-1872); and finally the part he played in the edition of the "Flood Poem" of the Gilgamesh epic discovered by George Smith in 1872.
