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The Flood Tablet, relating part of the Epic of Gilgamesh

Neo-Assyrian, 7th century BC
From Nineveh, northern Iraq

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. They recorded myths, legends and scientific information. Among them was the story of the adventures of Gilgamesh, a legendary ruler of Uruk, and his search for immortality. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a huge work, the longest literary work in Akkadian (the language of Babylonia and Assyria). It was widely known, with versions also found at Hattusas, capital of the Hittites, 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 everything he could find. Utnapishtim 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.'

T.C. Mitchell, The Bible in the British Museu (London, The British Museum Press, 1988)

H. McCall, Mesopotamian myths (London, The British Museum Press, 1990)

S. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia: Creati (Oxford University Press, 1991)