Atra-Hasīs

The Epic of Atra-Hasīs is an Old Babylonian poem that narrates the story of the man who survived the Flood. The best-preserved edition of the text known by the ancient Mesopotamians as enūma ilū awēlum ("When the Gods Were Man") is dated to the reign of Ammi-Ṣaduqa of Babylon (c. 1702-1682 BCE), as evidenced by the colophon, which also preserves the name of the scribe responsible for the edition, Kasaq-Aya (or Nūr-Aya). Divided into three tablets, each with eight columns of about fifty-five lines, the composition recounts two different stories, the first of which refers to the deities and the creation of humanity to free them from the burden of work, the second to the near-destruction of the human race by the Flood. Despite divine's intentions, the creation of the human being led to its uncontrolled reproduction and the consequent noise that disturbed the celestial sphere. The head of the pantheon, god Enlil, thus decided to convene a "war council" and after sending several afflictions to decrease the number of humans, he finally decided to send the Flood to wipe out humanity. Nevertheless, using his powers, god Enki instructed an "extraordinary wise" man (meaning of the name Atra-Hasīs in Akkadian) to build a vessel and save humankind from destruction. As a consequence of his actions, Atra-Hasīs was granted immortality, and the deities took a series of measures in order to prevent overpopulation. Besides the Old Babylonian tablets from Sippar, other Middle and Late Babylonian fragments of the composition were exhumed at Babylon, Nippur, Ugarit, and Sippar. Plus, a Late Assyrian edition was recovered from Ashurbanipal's (c. 668-627 BCE) library in Nineveh. Furthermore, although Atra-Hasīs is the best-known poetic text related to the Flood, additional testimonies of the same story have been found in ancient Mesopotamia. In Sumerian written evidence from roughly the same period as the earlier copies of Atra-Hasīs, the Deluge hero bears the name Ziusudra (i.e. the one who lived a "life of long days"). Accordingly, in the Flood story preserved on tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the survivor of the Flood is known as Uta-napištim, meaning "the one who found life".