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Who doesn’t know the story of the global flood from the Old Testament! But who would have thought that it is distributed all over the world and is presented in more than 250 versions? The origin of the myth of Noah's Ark is unclear. Was the original version of the Epic of Gilgamesh from the land of the Sumerians, written down almost 1000 years earlier than the Old Testament? And is this just a myth, or did Mesopotamia really suffer a devastating flood? And was the flood limited to a certain region, or was it a universal catastrophe?
O Lord, he repented that he created people in whom there is so much evil. "I will destroy them from the earth." 
All the springs of the great deep... and rain fell on the earth for forty days and forty nights.” 
“The waters increased and greatly increased on the earth,” says the Old Testament. 
The earth plunged into darkness, and all people drowned in torrents of rain. 
Prehistoric ships, similar to the saving Noah's Ark, are still being built on the Tigris. 
Noah's task was to restore fertility to the soil destroyed by the flood.
In a Mexican valley there lived a God-fearing man named Tapi, to whom one day the creator appeared. “Build an ark,” the Lord told him, “and make it your dwelling. Bring your wife there and a couple of all the animals you have. But hurry up, because the hour is near!” Tapi obeyed, not paying attention to the insults and ridicule of his neighbors. He had barely finished his work when it started to rain. He walked for a long time and continuously, the valley disappeared under water, people and animals sought refuge in the mountains, but the water overwhelmed them too. Only Tapi's ark sheltered living beings in the endless ocean. When the rain stopped, the sun shone again and the water subsided, the man released a dove from the ark. He did not return, and Tapi’s heart was filled with joy, for this meant that the bird had found a piece of land on which it could land.”
If in this story we put Noah in the place of Tapi, we will get a brief summary of the three Old Testament chapters of the “First Book of Moses,” with the exception of the words “in a Mexican valley.” However, these words should not be surprising, because we are not talking about a passage from the Old Testament, but about the religious tradition of the Mayans, the people who inhabited the territory of what is now Mexico. About 1,200 years before Columbus discovered the New World, the Maya people created a high culture in ancient America that lasted more than 1,000 years. The Mayan sacred books, the main one of which is Po-Vuh (which means “Book of Dominion”), detail the creation of the world and contain the above description of the great flood.
Surprisingly, Po-Vuh also contains New Testament elements, for example, the symbol of the cross or belief in a divine, messianic savior, who was called Kukulkan here and was depicted as a serpent with a human head.
And here is the abbreviated biblical account of the flood (“The First Book of Moses,” 6-8): “And the Lord saw how great was the wickedness of man on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of their hearts was evil continually. And the Lord repented that he had created man on earth, and was grieved in His heart. And the Lord said: I will destroy from the face of the earth man whom I have created, from man to beast, and I will destroy the creeping thing and the bird of the air; for I repented that I created them. Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord... And God said to Noah: ...make yourself an ark from gopher wood... I will bring a flood of water on the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the spirit of life under the heavens; everything on earth will lose life. But I will establish My covenant with you, and you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives will come into the ark with you. Also bring into the ark two of every animal and every flesh... Take for yourself all the food that they eat, and gather it to you; and it will be food for you and for them. And Noah did everything; as God commanded him, so he did... In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of heaven were opened; and the rain poured on the earth for forty days and forty nights... But the water increased and greatly increased on the earth; and the ark floated on the surface of the waters... The waters rose fifteen cubits, and the mountains were covered. And all flesh that moved on the earth lost its life, and birds, and cattle, and wild beasts, and every creeping thing that crawled on the earth, and all people... Only Noah remained, and that which was with him in the ark. The water increased on the earth for one hundred and fifty days.
Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord
And God remembered Noah, and all the beasts, and all the livestock... and the rain from heaven ceased... And the ark stopped in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat... After forty days Noah opened the window of the ark he made and released a raven, which, flying out, flew away and flew back until the earth was dried up from the water. Then he sent out a dove from him to see if the water had disappeared from the face of the earth, but the dove did not find a resting place for its feet and returned to him in the ark... And he delayed another seven days; and again he sent the dove out of the ark. The dove returned to him in the evening; and behold, a fresh olive leaf was in his mouth: and Noah knew that the waters had departed from the earth. He delayed another seven days, and sent out a dove; and he returned no more to him... And Noah opened the roof of the ark, and looked, and behold, the surface of the earth was dry..."
This Old Testament story appeared between the 10th and 5th centuries. BC e. in Judea. He could hardly get to America through the Atlantic Ocean, but perhaps through Siberia and Alaska? If this were so, then the legend of the great flood would have left traces along its path in other places. However, there is precisely no shortage of them.
A star in terrible brilliance
Apparently at the end of the 9th century. the Persian “Bundahishn” appeared, a book whose title can be translated as “The Creation of the Foundation,” that is, as the story of creation, and thus quite comparable with the “First Book of Moses.” The Bundahishn is largely based on the Avesta, the sacred book of the Parsis (fire worshipers), recorded in writing from 226 to 642. About the universal succession, the Bundahishn reports: “When Ahura Mazda (the supreme deity, literally “the wise Lord”) fought and Angro Mainyu (spirit of evil), the star Tistar appeared above the earth in terrible brilliance; successively turning into a man, a bull, and a horse, she set out to drown the earth in streams of rain, because the earth was then inhabited by creatures that brought evil. In each of its forms, the star Tistar shed rain for ten days...”
In this text, written one and a half millennia after the “First Book of Moses,” attention is drawn to the connection between the global flood and the appearance of a bright star in the sky.
Continuing further east, we will stop in India, where the great flood is reported in the Rig Veda. This sacred text for Hindus - like other Vedas - was passed down from mouth to mouth for centuries and was created a thousand years BC. e. It reads: “Oh, saint, you have always protected me, now listen to what you must do when the hour comes. The day is not far off, O holy man, when everything living and inanimate in this world will perish. The fateful time is approaching when the human race will sink into the water, and therefore I want to tell you how you can be saved. 
Noah's Ark has always been one of the favorite themes of Christian art. The Ark acts as a symbol of the church, where Christ will finally find the grace that he sought in vain in the vanity and destruction of a sinful world. 
The Sumerian epic Gilgamesh told about the global flood long before the Bible. 
The dove with an olive branch returns to the ark as a messenger of new life on earth.
The Ark is a symbol of God's caring love, calling for faith and obedience.
Seven is not understood here as a specific number, but is symbolic. It is considered mystical and religious, symbolizing the desire for knowledge and intuitive wisdom. The creation of the world took seven days. This number is sacred to the Universe.
Magic number seven
However, we will continue moving east. The myth of the great flood was also known in China. For the first time, it allows us to date this catastrophe, since it was precisely during the flood that the unification of the Chinese into one great empire began on the banks of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers. And this empire arose in the 3rd millennium BC. e.
The Eskimos could have transferred the legend from Asia to North America. Their ancient legends tell of an ark with seven bridges, on which the Tlingit, a large Indian tribe in Alaska, escaped death during the flood.
Assuming that the legendary legend of pre-Jewish times spread throughout Asia and eventually reached America. Over the course of many centuries, here and there new motifs were woven into the text, such as, for example, a horn growing on the head of a Hindu god, or the seven bridges of an Eskimo ark. In the myth of the Haida Indians, natives of the Queen Charlotte Islands off the west coast of British Columbia, the place of Noah is taken by a man with a steelhead, whom the gods turn into a salmon to save during the flood. In addition to the catastrophic flood that destroys all living things, the original myth here is reminded of the task set by the Almighty to renew the human race, as stated in the ancient Chinese legend. The ninth chapter of the “First Book of Moses” begins with the words: “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”
Next we come across a legend in the Algonquian language, widely spoken among the North American Indians, which is also very close to the biblical one: “Manitou (the supreme deity personifying magical power, supernatural forces) loved people very much. However, they were very guilty. And then the great spirit sent a man who was supposed to warn people: a terrible punishment will befall you if you do not improve. But the people continued to persist in their delusions. Then in the fall something incredible happened: the sun did not rise during the day, the moon and stars did not appear at night. The world plunged into impenetrable darkness. It became very cold, and the animals left their forests to find warmth and light near the fire that people had lit. The voices lost their sound. Everything was drowning in silence and cold until a terrible clap of thunder shook the earth. Then the voices began to sound again, and a great cry of horror was heard from everywhere, as torrents of rain fell upon the world.
Of the entire human race, only one person was saved, and that was a prophet. Following the advice of the Great Spirit, he built a huge raft from tree trunks."
The world has plunged into pitch darkness
We find similar legends among many other Indian tribes of North America. Legends about the global flood also exist in Mexico, this has already been mentioned. Surprisingly, the descendants of the Peruvian Incas also talk about the flood that broke out after 5 days of darkness and a terrible earthquake. These Indian tribes lived in the Andes at an altitude of several thousand meters, where such destructive floods simply could not happen.
The Ugha-Mongulala Indian tribe, living on the border of Venezuela and Brazil, has a legend about the appearance of “a huge star, the red trace of which stretched across the entire sky.” After this cosmic phenomenon, there was torrential rain for 13 months, which flooded the world and destroyed all life. Only one man named Madus managed to escape on the raft he built, and numerous animals, two of each species, also survived the flood.
Given this striking coincidence of the plots of the Old Testament and the Mayan legends from the Book of Vuh, many ethnologists continue to be of the opinion that the legend of the Flood, transmitted from mouth to mouth, made its way through all of Asia to the west coast of America. However, this version is very controversial, since today there are at least 250 local versions of the great flood in the world! Only ancient Greek and Roman legends go back directly to the Old Testament plot.
This is what the ancient Greeks said. “People became more and more wicked. Zeus called the gods and held council with them. And then he decided to destroy the entire human race and send such a strong wind to the earth that everything would be flooded. Zeus forbade all winds to blow; only the humid southern wind Noth drove dark rain clouds across the sky. The rain poured onto the ground. The water in the seas and rivers rose higher and higher, flooding everything around. The cities with their walls, houses and temples disappeared under the water, and the towers that rose high on the city walls were no longer visible. Gradually, the water covered everything - both forested hills and high mountains. All of Greece disappeared under the raging waves of the sea. The top of the two-headed Parnassus rose lonely among the waves... Only two escaped amid this common death - Deucalion, the son of Poseidon, and his wife Pyrrha. On the advice of his father, Deucalion built a huge box, put food supplies in it and entered it with his wife. For nine days and nights the box rushed across the sea until the waves drove it to the top of Parnassus. Deucalion and Pyrrha came out of the box and made a thanksgiving sacrifice to Zeus."
Zeus held council with the gods
Here's a Roman legend. “Since ancient times, evil on earth has flourished so much that Justice rushed to heaven, and the king of the gods ordered the extermination of the human race... Jupiter’s wrath spread to the entire heavenly kingdom. His brother Neptune, the ruler of the seas, sent his waves to help him. Neptune stuck his trident into the ground, and the earth began to tremble and shake... And soon it was no longer possible to distinguish where the land was and where the sea was... Almost all the people drowned. Those few who managed to escape the flood did not find food for themselves and died of hunger.”
It is unclear whether the ancient Germanic tradition comes directly from an Old Testament Greek or Roman source. 
“And take seven of every clean animal, male and female, and two of every unclean animal, male and female.” The artist Daniel Ferrara depicts the unloading of Noah's Ark as a heavenly scene, as the rebirth of the world. Traditions similar to those contained in the Old Testament are also found in the mythology of various peoples of Africa, Asia, Australia and America. However, the origin and widest spread of the legend of the Flood is still shrouded in mystery. 
The bizarre landscape, dissected by gorges, is like an illustration to the Old Testament: the prehistoric natural sandstone structures of Waltarka King Canyon in Australia are similar to Noah’s Ark.
Build a ship and save your life
In 1864-1865 his former assistant Hormuzd Rassam, a Chaldean Christian born in Mosul, found numerous clay tablets with cuneiform writing just 14 km north of the Nimrud Hill. These turned out to be large chunks of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The find so fascinated the curator of the British Museum, George Smith, that he not only deciphered the cuneiform, but also went to Mesopotamia and began searching for the missing parts of the epic.
Oddly enough, he was lucky. He found 384 fragments of clay tablets and was able to restore the famous epic poem of Gilgamesh into 12 cantos, of which the 11th contains the story of the flood. It tells the story of Utnapishtim, the pre-biblical equivalent of Noah. He reports to the Sumerian king Gilgamesh how “the lord with shining eyes, the god Ea,” warned him about the decision of the council of gods to flood the earth: “O man from Shuruppak, son of Ubar-Tutu, break down your house, build a ship, leave your wealth and save own life! Take with you into the ship all the seeds of life, your entire family and all household members, artisans, livestock, wild animals and plenty of green fodder...”
Then Utnapishtim talks about the construction of the ship and finally about the flood itself: “I entered the ark and locked the door behind me... When it began to dawn, a black cloud appeared on the horizon... Suddenly the daylight faded into darkness. One did not see the other, people did not recognize each other. The gods in the sky were afraid of the flood and backed away, climbing across the sky to the abode of Anu. People crouched to the ground like dogs, huddled against the walls... For six days and six nights the wind raged; a flood and a thunderstorm devastated the land. On the seventh day, the thunderstorm, the rain, and the storm that raged like an enemy army subsided. The sea calmed down and the water began to recede. I looked at the sea: there was silence on it, the entire human race had turned into clay again! Where there were fields, there were swamps... I looked at the world: everywhere there was a sea. An island appeared in the distance. The ship sailed to the land of Nizir, and the mountain did not let go of the ship... On the seventh day I released a dove. But the dove flew a little and, not finding shelter anywhere, returned back. Then I released the swallow and let it fly away. 
On Mount Ararat, in eastern Anatolia, according to the Old Testament, Noah's ark finally landed on earth. 
Was Mesopotamia, lying between the Tigris and Euphrates, the birthplace of legends about the global flood? 
Impressive monuments to the history of the Earth: in the beginning there were seas and volcanoes.
The swallow circled a little and came back. Then I released the raven. He flew away and saw that the water had subsided; he pecked at the food, flew around, croaked and never came back.”
Isn't this the prototype of all the legends about the global flood? The “First Book of Moses” was written down in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. e., and the cycle of epic tales of Gilgamesh is almost a thousand years earlier! But perhaps this message was also a myth? No one can say when King Gilgamesh lived or whether he even existed. True, there were compiled around 2100 BC. e. in ancient Babylon there were royal lists, according to which the history of the Sumerians goes back centuries until the creation of the first people. The ten most ancient kings are mentioned in the lists from the time of the forefather of mankind. Then a great flood happened and destroyed all the people. The Bible mentions ten “forefathers” during this period of time. After the flood, as the ancient royal lists report, a new human race appeared, this time the offspring of Utnapishtim.
Is the Tale of Gilgamesh the basis of flood lore?
Historians up to the 20th century. These “royal lists” were denied any authenticity. A real sensation appeared in the 1920s, when the English archaeologist Charles Leonard Woolley began excavations in ancient non-Sumerian Ur, the biblical Ur in Chaldea, the homeland of Abraham. He systematically opened up deeper and deeper layers of the earth, discovered prehistoric burials and recovered many clay shards. Then, at a depth of 12 m from the surface of the earth, he came across a layer of clay that did not contain any signs of human activity. However, Woolley continued to dig. Having gone 2.5 m deeper, I again discovered a cultural layer. The archaeologist's wife was the first to suggest that the untouched layer could be soil that was deposited by a flood. Later, geologists confirmed that this was indeed alluvial clay. And this meant that there was a catastrophic flood here. It can be dated to the 4th millennium BC. e. Apparently, this was the same great flood, the description of which is contained in the Epic of Gilgamesh and in the Old Testament.
This explanation does not suit Bible researchers: the catastrophe in the kingdom of the Sumerians, naturally, could not cover the whole world, and powerful alluvial layers of clay were discovered in Mexico. Moreover, they turned out to be even older there.
There was also a bright star, which is present in some legends about the flood that arose in different parts of the globe. Among the scientists there were lovers of sensations for whom Woolley’s discovery did not seem fantastic enough; they believed and continue to believe that we are talking about a global, worldwide catastrophe. According to them, June 5, 8496 BC. e. A giant meteorite with a diameter of about 10 km and a mass of about a trillion tons collided with the Earth. It seemed to shake our planet and, along with other cataclysms, caused a catastrophic flood.
The Great Flood - 4000 BC
However, let's return to reality. The historical flood struck Mesopotamia - how does this relate to the biblical indication that Noah's ark eventually landed on Ararat? Mount Ararat, as you know, is located in Anatolia, in the extreme east of today's Turkey, 1000 km from ancient Ur. In principle, the ship can cover such a distance. After a Turkish peasant found dilapidated logs on the top of Ararat, in 1949 the first 3 expeditions went to this extinct volcano with a height of 5165 m - in search of the remains of the ark. However, all efforts were in vain: no evidence was obtained that Noah’s Ark had ever landed here. The reason may be an involuntary mistake by historians. The fact is that at the time when the Old Testament was created, Ararat was the name for the entire mountainous country south of Lake Van. Ararat of the Flood is a mountainous country, not a specific peak.
Here the Koran comes to the rescue, where, as in the Old Testament, it tells about the events of the pre-Jewish era. Although the canonical text of the Koran was formed only in the 7th century, it is based on numerous ancient copies. So, in the story of the global flood (Sura 11, verses 36-48), Noah’s ark (in the Koran, the biblical Noah is called Nuh, and he is one of the Muslim prophets) ended up on Mount Judi, in the mountainous country of Ararat, in the territory of present-day Syria.
It is quite possible that future researchers of the Flood will be able to find the remains of the legendary Noah’s Ark here.
O Sumer, the great land among all the lands of the Universe, flooded with unfading light, defining divine laws for all peoples from sunrise to sunset! - the Sumerian poet once exclaimed. The Sumerians themselves say nothing about their origins. The most ancient myths begin the story of the creation of the world with individual cities.
The Sumerian civilization is the most ancient on our planet. In the second half of the 4th millennium it appeared as if out of nowhere. According to customs and language, this people was alien to the Semitic tribes, who settled Northern Mesopotamia a little later. The racial affiliation of the ancient Sumerian has not yet been determined. The history of the Sumerians is mysterious and amazing.
Sumerian culture gave humanity writing, the ability to process metals, the wheel and the potter's wheel. Inexplicably, these people possessed knowledge that had only recently become known to science. They left behind so many mysteries and secrets that they rightfully occupy perhaps the first place among all the amazing events in our lives.
Impressions of cylinder seals from the Jemdet-Nasr period: 1) a seal with the image of a sacred boat;2) seal from the temple of Inanna in Uruk.Beginning III millennium BC e.
In the minds of the ancient Mesopotamians, the world was inhabited by good and evil spirits, as well as powerful deities who controlled all the forces of nature. Each clan, community, city-state in Sumer had its own patron gods, sometimes considered mythical ancestors. Each person had his own personal guardian spirits - I'm walking And lamassu – and patronizing god and goddess.
But, on the other hand, human life was threatened by numerous evil demons - the personification of disease and death ( niqub, lilou, lilith). The fate of a person was recorded in cuneiform by the gods in the “Table of Fates”, and at the hour of death “Fate” came for him - the god Namtar ("Abductor") - and took the doomed person to the kingdom of death - the underworld, where the god Nergal and the goddess Ereshkigal ruled together with a council of the seven gods of the earth - the demons of the Anunnaki.
In the underworld, the soul of the deceased was doomed to a miserable existence in eternal darkness, hunger and thirst. When thinking about such a bleak posthumous fate, a person could only console himself with the fact that, depending on the type of death, he would receive a more or less merciful sentence from the Anunnaki court and would be able to enjoy food and drink from the sacrificial gifts that his relatives who remained on earth brought him.
The Sun God Shamash, sailing on his magic boat.
The sky also had its own “heavenly” kingdom with a council of gods. The main one is Enlil, the god of air, ruler of the earth (“Middle World”), king of all gods and patron of earthly kings. His cult was celebrated in a special temple in the holy city of Nippur, and this energetic and omnipotent god was worshiped throughout Sumer.
No less important in the pantheon was An (Anu) - the god of the Sky, as well as the wise and very supportive of people Enki (Ea), the deity of underground waters and the world Ocean. The mother goddess Ninhursag closes the four “great gods”.
A monster with the head of a lion, one of the seven evil demons, born in the Mountain of the East and living in pits and ruins. It causes discord and disease among people.
The strongest gods also included Utu (Shamash) - the god of the Sun, guardian of justice, revealing the future to people in fortune-telling and predictions of oracles; blue-bearded god of the moon - Nanna (Sin); the wayward beauty Inanna (Ishtar) is the goddess of the planet Venus, the patroness of carnal lust and love, earthly fertility, but at the same time the goddess of strife and discord.
The inhabitants of Sumer also revered the four “great” “cosmic” gods. These were An (Anu) - the god of the Sky, Enlil - the god of the air, Enki - the god of underground waters and, finally, the mother goddess Ninhursag, who bore different names in different Sumerian “nomes” (Ninhursang, Ninmah, Dingirmah). It was they who created the universe, earth, water, canals, vegetation, animals and people. It was they who occupied the top of the Mesopotamian “Olympus”.
An eagle-headed genius holding a vessel of pure water and a pine cone.
It accompanied a person in his daily life and protected him from illness and evil forces. Nimrud.
The kneeling deities near the sacred tree, with their hands raised in a protective gesture, probably represent Enlil or Bel, the god of the earth
Sumerian text "Enki and Ninhursag", dedicated to the paradise for the gods - Dilmun
Image and location of the paradise earth according to A. Kircher (“Noah’s Ark”)
The Sumerian paradise was not intended for people. It was a place where only gods could reside. From the first phrases of the poem we learn that the country of Dilmun is sacred, “the country of Dilmun is pure,” that the god Enki and his wife live here, because this country is “pure,” “bright,” “immaculate.”
In the country of Dilmun there is neither old age nor illness, people live here forever and no one crosses the river of death, and therefore:The Sumerian poet paints with bright colors a country where sadness and death, cruelty and despair are unknown, where the lamb is not afraid of the wolf and the bird ittidu, the messenger of death, does not utter its mournful cry. A beautiful, paradise country full of wonders, where:
the dove does not hide its head
There are no people who would say: “My eyes hurt,”
There are no people who say, “I have a headache,”
There is no old woman who would say: "I am old"
One thing is bad: there is not enough fresh water in Dilmun. When the goddess drew Enki's attention to this, he orders Utu, the sun god, to bring water from the earth to Dilmun.priests do not walk around him weeping,
The singer makes no complaints,
At the city walls he does not complain or cry.
Utu carried out Enki’s order: “from the mouth of the earth” a spring of fresh water gushed out, and everything was as God wished. Now nothing stood in the way of a happy life in the country of Dilmun, where the trees blossomed, the meadows turned green, and the ears of grain were filled with grain. And a satisfied Enki walked through the paradise country.
And then, apparently bored, he decides to have some fun in these wonderful paradise and alternately takes possession of his wife, the goddess Ninhursag, and then his two daughters. A remarkable fact is that all these women give birth quickly and without pain. Next, the restless Enki eats eight magical plants carefully grown by Ninhursag, falls ill and is miraculously saved from death.
In the minds of Sumerian theologians, heaven was not intended for mortal people, but for immortal gods. However, one mortal - but only one! - according to the Sumerian storytellers, he was nevertheless admitted to this paradise of the gods. We are talking about the Sumerian "Noah". Here we come to the flood myth.
global flood
G. Dore. global flood
Legends about the life and exploits of Gilgamesh are recorded in cuneiform on clay tablets in four languages of the Ancient East - Sumerian, Akkadian (Babylonian), Hurrian and Hittite.
After the death of his closest friend Enkidu, with whom he performed many heroic deeds, the king of Uruk, in search of the secret of immortality, decided to go to Utnapishtim (Sumerian Ziusudra, biblical “Noah”) - the only person on earth to whom the gods granted eternal life. Having overcome unimaginable difficulties on his long journey, Gilgamesh finally reaches the habitat of the righteous man and listens from him in detail about the catastrophic flood that destroyed the entire human race.
Utnapishtim - the son of Ubar-Titu, king of the city of Shuruppak, one of the most ancient cities of Sumer - was always distinguished by his peaceful disposition, kindness and piety and therefore was the favorite of the gods, and especially Enki (Babylonian Ea). And then one fine day, when the sins of the immensely multiplied people overflowed the patience of the supreme god Enlil, he ordered the destruction of humanity with the help of a gigantic flood.
But Enki-Ea found a way out here too: he secretly spoke to Utnapishtim through the thin wall of a reed hut, warning of impending disaster and advising him to build a large ship and load “the seed of all living beings” there:
The ruler of Shuruppak immediately followed all the advice of the deity. A huge seven-deck ship with a square outline was built, which, when launched, “sank two-thirds.”Shuruppak, son of Ubar-Titu,
Demolish the house, build a ship,
Leave abundance, take care of life,
Despise wealth, save your soul!
Load all living things onto your ship.
The ship that you build
Let the outline be quadrangular,
Let the width and length be equal,
Like the Ocean, cover it with a roof!
When the weather began to deteriorate sharply and the sky was clouded with black clouds, our Sumerian “Noah” realized that the time for the flood had come. He boarded the ship and tarred its doors. The following is a detailed description of the disaster that unfolded:Loaded it with everything I had
I loaded it with all the silver I had,
I loaded it with everything I had, gold,
I loaded it with everything that I had as a living creature,
He brought my whole family and kin onto the ship,
Steppe cattle and animals, I raised all the masters...
Even the gods themselves were afraid of this terrible sight and began to complain about what they had done. But it was no longer possible to stop the rampant elements.The morning light had barely set,
A black cloud rose from the base of the heavens.
Addu thunders in its middle,
Shullat and Hanish walk in front of her,
Messengers are coming, mountain and plain.
Eragal tears out the masts,
Ninurta is coming, breaking through the road,
The Anunnaki raised their torches,
To set the whole earth on fire with their radiance.
Because of Addu the sky is numb,
What was light has turned into darkness,
The whole earth split open like a bowl.
The first day the South wind rages,
It came quickly, flooding the mountains,
Like a war, overtaking people.
One does not see the other
And you can’t see people from heaven...
Utnapishtim-Ziusudra opened the hatch, and a ray of sunlight fell on his face. Silence and peace reigned all around. But it was dead silence:The wind blows for six days, seven nights,
The storm covers the earth with a flood.
When the seventh day comes
The storm and flood stopped the war...
The sea calmed down, the hurricane subsided - the flood stopped.
The ark of Utnapishtim stood near Mount Natsir (Nasir) for six days, but no other land was visible on the horizon. Then our “Noah” sent a dove to reconnoiter, but it returned with nothing; then a swallow flew up and also did not find the ground; Finally the raven was sent on its way:I looked at the sea - silence came,
And all of humanity became clay!
The plain became flat as a roof,
I fell to my knees, sat down and cried,
Tears ran down my face.
I began to look out for the shore in the open sea -
An island arose in twelve fields.
The ship stopped at Mount Nazir...
G. Dore. Noah releases a dove
Then Utnapishtim went to the top of the mountain and offered a prayer to the gods, burning incense from myrtle, cedar and fragrant herbs. And “the gods sensed a good smell,” “like flies, they gathered around the sacrificer and rejoiced when they saw that at least someone had survived the global catastrophe.” True, not everyone was happy. The terrible Enlil, on whose orders the flood was organized, was terribly angry with both the surviving people and Enki-Ea, who saved them. But it is not for nothing that this god - the “Lord of Fresh Waters” - was considered the most intelligent and resourceful in the Sumerian pantheon. He managed to convince Enlil not to harm Utnapishtim and his family:The raven, having set off, saw the decline of the water,
Didn't return; croaks, eats and shits...
The supreme celestial heeded the persuasion and decided not only to have mercy on Utnapishtim, but also to grant him and his wife immortality:You are a hero, a sage among the gods!
How, how, without thinking, did you cause a flood?
Place the sin on the one who has sinned,
Place the blame on the guilty one, -
Hold on, so as not to be destroyed, endure,
let him not be defeated!
A gigantic Flood devastated the land and all the people (except one or two) died. In the long history of mankind, the flood marks a certain break and the replacement of one race of people by another. The similarity with biblical tradition is, of course, striking.Enlil rose and boarded the ship,
He took me by the hand and led me outside,
He brought my wife to her knees next to her,
He touched our foreheads, stood between us,
blessed us:
Hitherto Utnapishtim was a man,
From now on, Utnapishtim is like us gods,
Let Utnapishtim live at the mouths of rivers, in the distance!
The Flood is, first of all, a biblical story, described in the first of the books and the entire Bible. However, legends or stories about the Flood are found in a number of mythological and religious texts of various peoples of the world.
In this article we will look at Biblical Flood or, as it is often called, Noah’s Flood, because it is a key figure in the events associated in the Bible with the Great Flood.
According to the Book of Genesis, the Flood is God's punishment for the sinfulness of mankind.
And the Lord said: I will destroy from the face of the earth man whom I have created, from man to beast, and the creeping thing and the bird of the air I will destroy, for I have repented that I created them. (Book of Genesis. Chapter 6)
The flood is God's way of destroying sin in man. God left only Noah and his family alive, commanding Noah to build an ark in which Noah and his family, as well as a couple of different animals and birds, hid. We will not dwell in detail on the history of the construction of the ark and its voyage, since there is already an article about this on the site that you can read -. Let's talk in more detail about the Flood, its symbolism and possible scientific interpretation.
Flood in the Bible.
As we have already said, the biblical story of the Flood is told in the book of Genesis.
The Great Flood is a monstrous catastrophe in biblical history, the consequence of which was the flooding of the entire planet and the death of almost all living things. During the flood, water increased not only due to the continuous rain for 40 days, but also due to the discovery of giant underground springs.
God's plan included perfection and universal harmony. Everything changed after. Evil and sin have settled on Earth. The first result was something committed by his blood brother out of jealousy. Some lived according to God, others lived in sin. Over time, there were so many sinners and unbelievers that the Lord decided to cleanse the Earth by sending the Great Flood.
All are open “springs of the abyss”, and opened “windows of heaven.” It was raining. unprecedented strength, and he walked for 40 days. Water oozed from the depths of the Earth for 150 days. After this, the water began to decrease. It took seven months for the peak of Ararat to emerge from the water. Noah came out of the ark and built an altar to the Lord and made a sacrifice. The Lord, seeing Noah’s grateful heart, decided never to repeat the Flood again.
... I will no longer curse the earth for man, because the thought of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will no longer smite every living thing, as I have done. (Genesis chapter 8)
Flood in the Apocrypha.
In addition to the canonical books of the Bible, the story of the Flood can be found in, for example, in (chapter 5), as well as in the Book of Enoch. In general, the apocryphal stories about the Great Flood do not contradict the canonical text of the Book of Genesis, but the cause of the flood in the apocrypha is the relationship of angels with women, which led to the emergence of magic and witchcraft, as well as to a general decline in morals.
The Flood divided biblical history into two eras: antediluvian and post-flood times.
The origins of the biblical story of the Great Flood.
The biblical story of the Great Flood has its source - the Assyrian myth of Gilgamesh, which is preserved on clay tablets. These tales, written in cuneiform, date back to the 21st century. BC e. the story tells of the miraculous rescue of the Assyrian Utnapishta with all his belongings and animals in the ark during the Flood. On the seventh day of the voyage, the ark of Utnapishta stopped, clinging to the top of Mount Nitsir.
The biblical story differs significantly from the legend of the salvation of Utnapishta only in the duration of the flood: according to the Bible, the flood lasted almost a year, and according to Assyrian sources - seven days.
The description of the construction of the ark, as well as the method of determining the water level with the help of birds, coincide. Utnapishty released a dove and a swallow, and Noah released a raven and a dove. The amazing similarity between the Assyrian and biblical narratives seems even more wonderful if we mention that sometimes these versions are absolutely identical in expression. The Assyrian story of the Flood reduces the flood to a small and plausible size - the flood lasts seven days, the water does not cover the top of Mount Nitzir (its height is about 400 meters).
But is the Assyrian legend the ultimate source? No. Archaeologists often refer to the land of Mesopotamia as a “big layer cake.” Civilizations replaced one another here. The Assyrians, who conquered the valley of the two rivers, were a very young nation compared to the Babylonians, who lived in this territory long before the arrival of the Assyrians. The Assyrians, of course, borrowed the story of Gilgamesh from the more ancient inhabitants of the Tigris and Euphrates valley - the Babylonians. After a number of Sumerian monuments were found in the 20th century, it became clear that the story of the flood migrated to the Babylonians from an even more ancient people - Sumerians. However, here we will not find the end point of our journey to the source of the story about the Flood.
Leonard Woolley, the famous archaeologist and researcher, while excavating Ur, discovered that the Sumerian culture was preceded by another, even more ancient one, it is called El Obeid culture named after the hill where traces of it were first found. Among other valuables, the people of the El Obeid period passed on to the Sumerians the story of the Flood.
The Sumerians were very ancient nomads who, having come from outside, adopted the achievements of a sedentary people. An analysis of the words of the Ubaid language that have come down to us shows that it has much in common with the language of the Dravidians living in South India. The Dravidian peoples also have a legend about the global flood.
Was there a Flood? Scientific point of view.
The story of the Flood described in the Bible has analogues among different peoples, far from the Old Testament ideas. This suggests that such a cataclysm took place and its consequences were indeed severe, since legends about the Great Flood were preserved in the memory of the peoples of all continents of the Earth.
Today, scientists reject the version that in the times described by the Bible there really was a World Sweat. A large number of legends, including the biblical one, most likely describe various disasters associated with water and flooding, which occurred at different time periods and were of a local nature.
Thus, the Great Flood is most likely a huge number of local disasters in different regions, to which residents of the affected areas attributed a global nature. The probable causes of local sweats were:
- tsunami due to earthquakes or meteorite falls,
- rise in water level for one reason or another,
- water breakthroughs from closed reservoirs due to karst processes,
- typhoons.
What are we dealing with when we talk about the Biblical Flood?
Questions about the flood worried the Austrian geologist E. Suess, who studied the biblical text, as well as the primary source of the biblical legend - the Assyrian myth of Gilgamesh, and concluded that Noah's Flood was nothing more than a devastating flood of the Mesopotamian lowland in the lower reaches of the Euphrates. E. Suess considered the main cause of the Biblical Flood to be a tsunami formed as a result of a strong earthquake in the Persian Gulf. Scientists who followed Suess found that the probable cause of Noah's Flood was not a tsunami - tsunamis of such force are not typical for this region, but a devastating flood that occurred as a result of prolonged downpours and strong winds blowing against the flow of rivers. Similar floods have been observed more than once in the Bengal region. The water level during such floods quickly rose by 16 meters. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Probably a similar flood 4000-5000 years ago was described in the Bible as the Great Flood.
There is, however, another opinion among scientists, according to which the Flood took place precisely in the form of a global catastrophe, when the Black Sea ceased to be closed. Due to a powerful earthquake, the water level rose by 140 meters, the Black Sea connected with the Mediterranean, causing flooding of vast regions and the death of a huge number of people.
Flood time
When was the Great Flood? At what year? The Bible contains enough chronological information to answer these questions. Genesis very accurately records the genealogy from the creation of the first man, Adam, to the birth of Noah. The flood, according to biblical tradition, began
in the six hundredth year of Noah's life (Genesis, chapter 7).
If we take 537 BC as our starting point. e., when the remnant of the Jews left Babylon and returned to their homeland, then by subtracting the periods of the reign of the judges and kings of Israel, as well as the years of life of the post-flood patriarchs indicated in the Old Testament, we get that the Great Flood occurred in 2370 BC. uh.
It should be remembered that the biblical story was borrowed from the Assyrians. An Assyrian legend describes a natural disaster that occurred around in 5500 BC.
There are also alternative versions. Based on the chronological system of the English Archbishop Usher, the flood can be dated 2349 BC e. According to the Septuagint chronological data, the Flood occurred in 3213 BC e.
Which once destroyed the earth. The myth of the Flood is found in the folklore of a wide variety of peoples on almost all continents. It is absent in the mythological systems of many Central and South African tribes and not all Indians of North and South America have it, but in Eurasia, especially in the Middle East and Europe, this legend is one of the fundamental principles of ideas about the world order...
Ancient Babylon: the flood as a divine “demographic policy”
There were several flood myths in Sumerian-Akkadian mythology. On the famous ancient tablet, found and published at the beginning of the 20th century by Arno Pöbel, only a third of the original text has been preserved. But what remains is consistent with later Akkadian poems, from which the ancient Babylonian flood myth is reconstructed. According to Sumerian legend, the gods, who were dissatisfied with their own creation, decided to flood the earth.
In Babylonian myth, the decision to cause the flood was made at a council of the gods. The catastrophe lasted a week, and after it only Ziusudra, who was warned by the priest of one of the gods, was saved. He survived the flood on his ship, and upon leaving it, he bowed to the gods and made a sacrifice to them so that they would allow Ziusudra to continue life on earth. The Akkadian poem about the end of the world dates back to the 2nd millennium BC. In it, the gods create 7 men and 7 women, who in just a dozen hundred years give so many offspring that they begin to “make a lot of noise” and disturb the gods.
The gods, tired of people, first send terrible diseases, then drought. Rescued from the apocalypse 
only the advice of the wise Atrahasis, who says that it is necessary to make sacrifices to the gods and build a temple. In the end, the gods decide to destroy humanity, but one of them (Enki) shows Atrahasis how to build an ark and tells him to take with him his wife, slaves, various animals, "herbivores and wild ones." After the flood, Atrahasis continues the human race. God Enlil, having learned that people were allowed to be saved, is angry. He doesn't want them to "breed" again. But the goddess Nintu is taking measures to combat the subsequent relocation. She creates demons who take the souls of babies, and imposes childbirth bans on priestesses.
The Babylonian flood tales are formally considered older than the biblical ones, since the oldest tablet dates back to the 17th century BC.
However, how consistent they are with biblical history 
But I 
, only confirms scientists’ hypotheses that the Middle Eastern myths about the great flood are based on the preserved memory of an event that once actually took place. According to Sumerian sources, sometimes they even try to restore its possible date. Thus, according to the list of kings, which indicates the exact number of years that passed from the flood to the reign of the last sovereign, it turns out that the catastrophe occurred 33.9 (according to other studies, 35.4) thousand years BC.
Noah's Ark
The classic biblical legend is familiar to everyone since childhood. It is from this that the expression “antediluvian times” and the dove as a symbol of peace originate. This tradition came into the Old Testament from the Hebrew Book of Genesis. The flood in the Bible, as in Sumerian sources, was a punishment for human misdeeds, sent to the earth to destroy all life on it. But the cause of divine wrath was not simply irritation, as in the Babylonian text.
In addition, unlike Enlil, who did not like people, the biblical god initially wanted new life to begin on earth after the flood.
People, according to God, have become too immoral and no longer correspond to the creator's plan. Therefore, he decided to leave only the only righteous one of them alive. Like all Old Testament heroes, Noah was a man of rather “old” age by modern standards. He was already 600 years old when he built the ark (which took a century to build). Biblical time flows differently, so the famous 40 days after the end of the world, during which Noah waited for the flood to stop, and then almost a year of searching for dry land, may seem implausibly long only to a modern person.
Indian flood myths
J. Frazer gives in his book “Folklore in the Old Testament” an example of flood legends in modern India. In the folklore of one of the tribes, once upon a time, a fish warned the “good man”, who did not eat it, about the upcoming end of the world and advised him to make a huge box to save himself. Following this advice, the man entered the “ark” he had built with his sister and a rooster. The flood really took place, and after all life on earth was destroyed, Rama found the survivor and his sister by the crowing of a rooster. From their consanguineous marriage, 7 sons and 7 daughters were subsequently born, from whom all modern people descend.
In the mythological system of another tribe, two couples remained alive after the flood. One man and woman hid on the top of a tree that grew on the top of the highest mountain and waited there for the water to recede. But while they were sitting on the branches, God turned this couple into tigers and sent other people to the mountain who were supposed to continue the human race. The people sent by God first killed the transformed predators, and then began to breed and multiply in order to repopulate the world with people.
The similarity between Indian flood myths and biblical ones is quite obvious.
Some researchers explain this by the Aryan conquest, others by possible contacts with Semitic peoples. At the same time, in the Vedas, as Frazer notes, there were no myths about the flood. But in later Sanskrit literature these legends began to appear. In one of the most popular, the god Manu also comes across a fish, which asks him to raise it and release it and warns him of a flood. After the flood, he is left alone and asks about his descendants. Manu sacrifices milk, butter and curd to the water, hoping to continue the family line. And over time, from the sacrificial milk and cottage cheese he spilled, his woman-daughter is born, through whom he gives birth to all modern people.
Ksenia Zharchinskaya
Soon a terrible flood began. It rained incessantly for 40 days and 40 nights. Water flooded the entire earth, but Noah's ark survived, floating on the waves. All life on earth perished from the global flood, except those who were in the ark.
Then the rains stopped, the water began to subside, and the ark stopped on the high Mount Ararat. Noah opened the window of the ark and released first a raven and then a dove. The birds flew away and flew back because they had nowhere to land because of the water. But one day the dove released into the wild did not return to the ark, and Noah realized that the flood had stopped and dry land had risen somewhere from the sea.
Noah releases a dove from the ark. Mosaic from the Cathedral of Montreal, Italy, 1180s.
He and his family left the ark, brought out the animals, built an altar and sacrificed some animals to God on it, as a sign of gratitude for their salvation. He promised Noah to God that he would no longer send a flood to the earth and, as a sign of his reconciliation with people, he raised a rainbow between the clouds. Having blessed Noah and his children, the Almighty told them: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Let all the beasts of the earth, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea submit to you; you can eat their meat along with any greens and herbs. Just do not shed human blood, for man was created in the image and likeness of God.”
