The Flood (Gilgamesh, Tablet XI)

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Akkadian (Babylonian) · This version is the 7th-century-BC recension from Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh; the flood story itself is attested by c. 1700 BC.

Translation: E. A. Wallis Budge, 1920 — E. A. Wallis Budge, The Babylonian Story of the Deluge as Told by Assyrian Tablets from Nineveh (British Museum, 1920). Public domain.

Gilgamesh, searching for the secret of immortality, reaches Uta-Napishtim, the one man who survived the flood and was made deathless. Uta-Napishtim tells the story: the gods decide to wipe out humankind; Ea warns him through a reed wall; he builds a sealed ship and caulks it with pitch, loads his family, kin and animals, and shuts the door. The storm rages for days until 'all mankind was turned to clay'. The ship grounds on Mount Nisir; after seven days he sends out a dove, then a swallow, then a raven, and the raven does not return. He offers sacrifice on the peak and 'the gods gathered like flies over the sacrifice'. Enlil is angry that anyone survived; Ea rebukes him, and Uta-Napishtim and his wife are made immortal.

The parallels to Genesis 6–9 are close and numerous — the divine warning, the pitch-sealed vessel, the family and animals, the shut door, the mountain landing, the birds, the sweet-smelling sacrifice, the promise of restraint. Genesis reframes the cause as human violence rather than divine irritation, and has one God who both sends and stays the flood.

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Gilgamesh XI, lines 1–205 8 biblical parallels
Uta-Napishtim's first-person account of the flood, as told to Gilgamesh.