In the Epic of Atrahasis, the man warned to build a boat for the great flood is Atrahasis.
The Epic of Atrahasis is an ancient Akkadian work preserved on cuneiform tablets. Its hero, Atrahasis, receives a warning from the god Enki about a devastating flood and builds a vessel to preserve himself, his family, and living things. The poem is one of the major Mesopotamian flood traditions studied alongside Genesis and the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Atrahasis is not interchangeable with the other famous flood survivors. Utnapishtim is the survivor in the Epic of Gilgamesh, while Ziusudra is the survivor in the Sumerian flood story. Similar plot elements reflect a shared ancient Near Eastern literary environment, but the names belong to different texts.
The title Atrahasis means “exceedingly wise” or “very wise,” depending on translation. The surviving tablets are damaged, so scholars reconstruct parts of the poem from multiple sources.