In the Epic of Atrahasis, Atrahasis is the human warned to survive the great flood.
The Old Babylonian Atrahasis epic, preserved on clay tablets from the second millennium BCE, tells how the god Enki warns Atrahasis about a flood planned by the gods. Atrahasis builds a boat and loads it with living creatures and provisions. The story is one of the earliest surviving written flood narratives and is frequently compared with Genesis and the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The poem gives the flood a divine and human setting different from Genesis. Enlil wants humanity reduced because of its noise, while Enki secretly protects Atrahasis. After the flood, the gods establish measures intended to limit human population growth, including mortality and childlessness.
Atrahasis is both the hero’s name and the title commonly used for the work. Enki is the warning deity, Enlil is the deity who promotes the destructive plan, and Gilgamesh belongs to a separate Mesopotamian epic that preserves a related flood account.