In the eleventh of the twelve tablets, Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh about the flood. Utnapishtim was a legendary king of Shuruppak in southern Iraq who survived a flood by making a boat. He explains ...

In last week’s column we considered the ancient Greek story of Deucalion and the wonderful ark, which saved the peoples of antiquity from a flood sent by the angry Olympian gods. We reflected on the ...

Well before Noah, another ancient shipbuilder, named Utnapishtim, sailed the waters of a universal flood. His tale was told by the Babylonians in the second millennium B.C., or even earlier, and ...

The Gilgamesh epic has often been called the world's oldest surviving story. This isn't strictly true: That distinction probably belongs to the Sumerian epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta. Still, ...

TWO-thirds god, one-third man — Gilgamesh, King of the Sumerian city of Uruk, with an enviable physical structure, transcendent valor, and unparalleled wisdom holds the prelude of the most ancient ...

In the eleventh of the twelve tablets, Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh about the flood. The gods create humans, Utnapishtim explains, but they soon recognize they had made a mistake. Humans became so ...