The Flood Tablet, relating part of the Epic of Gilgamesh
From Nineveh, northern Iraq, Neo-Assyrian, 7th
century BC
The most famous cuneiform tablet from
Mesopotamia
The Assyrian King Ashurbanipal (reigned
669-631 BC) collected a library of thousands of cuneiform tablets
in his palace at Nineveh. It included letters, legal texts, lists
of people, animals and goods, and a wealth of scientific
information, as well as myths and legends.
The best known of these was the story of
Gilgamesh, a legendary ruler of Uruk, and his search for
immortality. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a huge work, the longest
piece of literature in Akkadian (the language of Babylonia and
Assyria). It was known across the ancient Near East, with versions
also found at Hattusas (capital of the Hittites), Emar in Syria and
Megiddo in the Levant.
This, the eleventh tablet of the Epic,
describes the meeting of Gilgamesh with Utnapishtim. Like Noah in
the Hebrew Bible, Utnapishtim had been forewarned of a plan by the
gods to send a great flood. He built a boat and loaded it with all
his precious possessions, his kith and kin, domesticated and wild
animals and skilled craftsmen of every kind.
tnapishtim survived the flood for six days
while mankind was destroyed, before landing on a mountain called
Nimush. He released a dove and a swallow but they did not find dry
land to rest on, and returned. Finally a raven that he released did
not return, showing that the waters must have receded.
This Assyrian version of the Old Testament
flood story was identified in 1872 by George Smith, an assistant in
The British Museum. On reading the text he
... jumped up and rushed about the room in a
great state of excitement, and, to the astonishment of those
present, began to undress himself.'
