In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim built a boat to survive the great flood.
Utnapishtim is the flood survivor who tells Gilgamesh how the gods warned him to abandon his home and construct a large vessel. The story appears in Tablet XI of the Standard Babylonian version of the epic.
The episode includes several motifs familiar from the Noah story, such as a divinely sent flood, a boat, the preservation of life, and the release of birds to test whether the waters had receded. Utnapishtim’s account is not the same text as Genesis, however, and the characters, setting, and theology differ.
Utnapishtim is granted immortality after the flood. His story is one of the most important ancient Near Eastern flood narratives used in comparisons with the biblical account.