Antrahasis

An epic poem originally dating from Mesopotamia's Sumerian period (the second millennium b.c.) and perpetuated by the Babylonians and other peoples who later dwelled in the region. The most complete written copy, made by a Babylonian scribe, dates from circa 1700 to 1650 b.c. A fragment, representing about a fifth of the work, was discovered in 1876; more came to light in 1965, and about 80 percent of the original has now been recovered. one of the most important of the Mesopotamian creation stories, the tale of Atrahasis also provides biblical scholars with a link between the ancient Mesopota-mian and Hebrew cultures, as the story of Noah and the flood from the book of Genesis is clearly based on the Atrahasis.

   According to legend, Atrahasis was the pious king of the Sumerian city of Shuruppak, lying northwest of the Persian Gulf. He was forced to deal with a series of epic, dramatic events when the powerful storm god, Enlil, decided to destroy the human race because he felt that people had become too noisy and annoying. As his instrument of destruction, Enlil chose a great flood. However, Ea, god of wisdom and freshwater, felt bad for the humans. Behind Enlil's back, Ea went to Atrahasis and warned him of the coming deluge. The god told the man to dismantle his house, use the materials to build a big boat, and try to save as many plant and animal species as possible by loading them onto the ark. "I loaded her with everything there was," Atrahasis later recalled. "I loaded her with all the seeds of living things, all of them. I put on board the boat all my kith and kin. I put on board the cattle from open country and all kinds of craftsmen." Then the floods came and covered the land far and wide, drowning all those humans and animals that were not in Atrahasis's boat. Finally, on the seventh day, the storm subsided and Atra-hasis looked out at the ruined world. "Silence reigned, for all of humanity had returned to clay," he says.

   The flood-plain was as flat as a roof. I opened a porthole and light fell on my cheeks. . . . Tears ran down my cheeks. . . . The boat had come to rest on [the top of] Mount Nimush. . . . When the seventh day arrived, I put out and released a dove. The dove went; it came back, for no perching place was visible to it, and it turned around. [Later] I put out and released a raven. The raven went and saw the waters receding. And it ate . . . and did not turn round. Then I put all [on board the ark] out to the four winds [i.e., in all directions] and I made a sacrifice [to the gods].

   After the catastrophe, some gods were glad that humanity had survived, but Enlil was upset that Ea had interfered in his plans to destroy the human race. Fortunately for Atrahasis and his family, the tactful Ea convinced Enlil that saving humanity was a good thing. Enlil decided to commemorate the event by giving Atrahasis and his wife - but no other humans - the gift of immortality.

Figure 2: The location of Babylonia made it vulnerable to floods from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

The oldest known copy of the epic of Atrahasis can be dated by its scribal identification to the reign of Hammurabi's great-grandson, Ammi-Saduqa (1646–1626 B.C.E.), but also various Old Babylonian fragments exist. The story continued to be copied into the first millennium B.C.E. The Atrahasis story also exists in a later fragmentary Assyrian version, the first one having been discovered in the library of Ashurbanipal.

In 1965, W.G. Lambert and A.R. Millard published additional texts belonging to the epic written around 1650 B.C.E. which constitute our most complete surviving recension of the tale. These texts greatly increased knowledge of the epic and served as the foundation for the first English translation of the full Atrahasis epic, by Lambert and Millard in 1969. A further fragment has been recovered in archaeological work at the Mesopotamian city of Ugarit.

Figure 3: Cuneiform tablet with the Atra-Hasis epic in the British Museum / Wikimedia Commons