In the Babylonian flood story Atrahasis, the god Enki tells Atrahasis to build a boat.
The Atrahasis Epic is an ancient Mesopotamian composition preserved on cuneiform tablets. In the story, Enki warns Atrahasis about a coming flood and instructs him to construct a large boat, bring aboard living creatures, and survive the catastrophe. The work is usually dated to the second millennium BCE, although the tradition draws on older Mesopotamian flood material.
The Atrahasis account is related to, but not identical with, the later biblical Genesis narrative. Its divine figures, motivations, wording, and vessel description differ. This is why answers such as “ark” can be misleading when a question asks for the vessel’s generic type in Atrahasis: the relevant answer is a boat.
The best-known Mesopotamian flood account appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the flood survivor is Utnapishtim. Atrahasis is a separate literary tradition with its own protagonist and structure.