In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim is the flood survivor who built a boat after being warned.
The character appears in the epic’s Flood Story, where the god Ea warns Utnapishtim of a coming deluge and instructs him to build a large boat. Utnapishtim saves his family, craftsmen, and living creatures, creating a Mesopotamian flood narrative with important similarities to the story of Noah’s Ark.
Utnapishtim is not Noah under another spelling. He belongs to a different literary tradition, preserved in cuneiform texts from ancient Mesopotamia. The best-known version appears on Tablet XI of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh.
The two stories share motifs such as divine warning, a boat, a flood, and the preservation of life, but their names, gods, narrative details, and cultural settings differ.