What is the title of the oldest surviving Mesopotamian flood story featuring Atrahasis?
Answer
The Atrahasis Epic
Answer
The Atrahasis Epic
The oldest surviving Mesopotamian flood story featuring Atrahasis is the Atrahasis Epic.
The Atrahasis Epic is an Akkadian narrative preserved on clay tablets. Its surviving Old Babylonian version is generally dated to the seventeenth century BCE, although the story draws on older Mesopotamian traditions. Atrahasis is warned by the god Enki about a divine plan to send a devastating flood, and he builds a boat to survive it.
The poem places the flood within a larger account of humanity's creation and the gods' attempts to control human population and noise. This broader framework distinguishes it from the flood episode in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where Utnapishtim recounts his survival to Gilgamesh.
The Atrahasis tradition is frequently discussed alongside Genesis because both include a chosen survivor, a large vessel, animals, birds, and a post-flood sacrifice. Similar motifs do not by themselves establish a single direction of borrowing; scholars compare the texts within the wider literature of ancient Mesopotamia.
Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Oct. 2026