“It’s still remarkable that this flood story was written so early on. And then, with whatever variations, gets retold in a totally different context,” says historian Dr Moudhy Al-Rashid, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast.

A civilisation between rivers

The setting for this myth is ancient Mesopotamia, a civilisation whose name literally means “the land between the rivers”. These rivers – the Tigris and Euphrates – run through modern-day Iraq and parts of Syria and gave rise to some of the world’s first urban civilisations, including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and Assyrians.

From as early as 3000 BCE, these cultures developed literature, law codes, the first cities, monumental temples, advanced irrigation and vast mythological traditions. They wrote on clay tablets using cuneiform script and preserved stories that shaped religious thinking for thousands of years.

Among these stories is the Atra-Hasis Epic, a myth composed in the Old Babylonian period (c. 1900–1600 BCE), which contains the oldest known account of a divine flood sent to destroy humanity – and a chosen survivor tasked with saving life on Earth.

“[It] has a lot of commonalities with the story that appears later on in the Bible,” explains Al-Rashid.

The story of Atra-Hasis

In the myth, the Mesopotamian gods have created humans but quickly come to regret it, as the unruly people disturb the gods with their chaos and violate the cosmic order.

“The gods decide to send a deluge to wipe out humanity,” explains Al-Rashid, “because they become too loud and annoying, effectively.”

But one god, Ea (also known as Enki), disagrees. In secret, he warns a wise king named Atra-Hasis, whose name means “exceeding in wisdom”. Ea instructs him to build a boat, a great vessel that will preserve “the seed of all life on Earth”.

Atra-Hasis persuades his community to help him build an ark. “He’s got everyone in the town to help him build this boat basically in a day,” Al-Rashid says. “And they’re having a feast to celebrate.”

But the feast is overshadowed by the king’s dread. Atra-Hasis gives a speech filled with puns and wordplay that hint at the catastrophe to come.

“He talks about how Enlil, the supreme god, will rain cuckoo cakes down and ktu wheat,” says Al-Rashid. “But cuckoo is very close to the word kaku, which means weapon in Akkadian, and ktu is close to katu, which means heavy.”

“So is he lying to them and saying all these lovely things will rain down from the heavens?” she adds. “Or is he basically trying to warn people?”

After the feast, overcome with guilt and fear, Atra-Hasis breaks down. “He weeps and even pukes,” says Al-Rashid. “He feels so ill that he has to abandon all these people and take this boat […] because he’s been instructed to do so by this god to ensure the survival of humanity.”

The flood then comes, washing most of humanity away. Eventually, the rain stops, and the waters begin to recede.

In the aftermath, Atra-Hasis releases a dove, a swallow and a raven to find dry land. “The raven eventually doesn’t come back,” says Al-Rashid, meaning it has found land and a possible future.

This sequence – three birds sent out, one failing to return – appears again, nearly identically, in the biblical story of Noah in Genesis.

Flood myths across cultures

This Babylonian version of the flood myth wasn’t a one-off, either. Instead, this was a recurring motif in Mesopotamian theology.

A variation of the same story appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and earlier still in Sumerian poetry. Each iteration changes names and details, but the essentials remain: the gods regret their creation, a great flood is sent, and one human is chosen to carry forward life.

And this archetypal structure isn’t limited to Mesopotamia. Similar flood stories appear in cultures around the world – from India’s tale of Manu to China’s story of Yu the Great, to Native American myths and Aboriginal oral traditions in Australia.

From cuneiform to Genesis

So how did this ancient tale reach the Bible? There is no definitive answer.

However, ancient Israelite scribes did live and write in a region heavily influenced by Babylonian culture. During the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century BCE, many Jewish thinkers lived in Babylon and had access to local literature and oral traditions.

One theory is that this is how the flood myth, along with other Mesopotamian cosmologies, seeped into the Hebrew worldview, becoming reframed and retold through a monotheistic lens.

In the Book of Genesis, God chooses Noah to build an ark and save creation from divine wrath. Noah releases a dove and a raven. The flood ends. A new covenant is formed. This is a structure that echoes the voice of Atra-Hasis, speaking from a clay tablet inscribed four thousand years ago.

Moudhy Al-Rashid was speaking to David Musgrove on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.