In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim’s flood boat is described as a cube.
The boat’s unusual shape appears in the flood narrative of Tablet XI. Ea, the god who warns Utnapishtim, gives instructions for constructing a vessel with equal length and width, producing a massive boxlike form rather than the streamlined shape of an ordinary ship.
The account also divides the vessel into multiple levels and describes the use of bitumen to make it watertight. These details emphasize the boat’s function as a sealed container designed to preserve life through the flood.
Readers sometimes picture the vessel as a conventional ark because of later flood traditions. The cube description is specific to the version of the story preserved in the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh.