How many days and nights did the flood storm last in the epic?

In the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, the flood storm lasted six days and seven nights.

The duration appears in Utnapishtim’s account of the deluge in Tablet XI. He describes violent winds, rain, and floodwaters overwhelming the land until the seventh day, when the storm subsides and the sea becomes calm. This compact seven-part duration is one of the poem’s most memorable numerical details.

The passage is often confused with the biblical story of Noah, where rain falls for forty days and forty nights. It is also easy to mix it up with other Mesopotamian flood traditions: the Sumerian flood story and the Atrahasis Epic preserve related narratives but do not always use precisely the same wording or chronology.

The storm’s end is not the same as every later event in the story. Utnapishtim’s boat remains near a mountain, and he later releases birds to test whether the waters have receded. Gilgamesh also sleeps for six days and seven nights during his encounter with Utnapishtim, creating another similar number that can cause mix-ups.