Atra-Hasis

[5]: 8–15 The story of Atrahasis also exists in a later Assyrian dialect version, first rediscovered in the Library of Ashurbanipal, though its translations have been uncertain due to the artifact being in fragmentary condition and containing ambiguous words.

In 1965, Wilfred G. Lambert and Alan Millard[6] published many additional texts belonging to the epic, including an Old Babylonian copy (written c. 1650 BC) which is the most complete recension of the tale to have survived.

They seem to have been united in an organization similar to that which existed in Greece between Zeus – as ‘pure spirit or air’ the leading party – and the groups round Poseidon (ocean) and Hades (earth).

[7]) It is not unlikely [citation needed] that the story refers to the era of the Neolithic Revolution, when Homo sapiens, similar to chimpanzees evolving in small autarkic hordes, began to establish political inter-group organisations.

Instead of fighting each other as before (and as our closest relatives in the animal kingdom seem to have no choice in doing in an overpopulation crisis), these groups of hunter-gatherers came together – according to K. Schmidt's thesis – to share their coveted territory in peace, to defend it and to erect impressive monuments like those at Göbekli Tepe.

In the main, the epic reports on a conflict between some of the first Sumerian gods and draws on the earlier myth of the separation of air and earth (‘above’ and ‘below’) in the midst of the cosmic freshwater primordial ocean to clarify their hierarchical relationship.

His aptitude as the greatest warrior and chief strategist of the divine tribal alliance gives him power over the other parties of gods; only he has the ability to transform present circumstances back into their original state – redefining the course of fate.

[9] As a permanent legal document the tablet was provided with a seal, a sign mechanically applied by means of a special technique, which in ancient Mesopotamia was regarded as a symbol of a contract.

[9] Contracts have been directly related to tribute payments to be made: often to shares of the food produced (see the cattle to be divided equitably between Prometheus and Zeus), but generally to assistance in battle or labour, such as the construction of mighty irrigation channels as described in the epic discussed here.

The God-fearing priest Atraḫasis – the only one who was therefore allowed to survive the attempted delation with his wife, ensuring continued existence of artificially constructed humanity – appears there as Noah.

While the latter had the task of ensuring the supply of the land through construction of irrigation canals by digging out the beds of big rivers, the Anunnaki ruled from above, presumably watching over the implementation of their plans and dividing the fruits of this great civilising project as they saw fit.

At night, they surrounded the dwelling place of Enlil, who was considered the main god of Sumerian civilisation, the seperator of air and earth in the midst of the cosmic ocean.

Gen. 2.18) To complete the construction of humans in the optimal way, Mami encouraged the young couple to celebrate a seven day feast in honour of Isthar, the goddess of war and sexuality.

Because the gods in upper part of heaven could no longer even sleep, Enlil sent Adad and, again 1200 years later, the fertility goddess Nisaba to devastate the land with storms and dry up the harvests.

In addition, he made Enki swear before the Anunnaki that he would not speak another word to humans; he then began to consult with the assembled gods about the exact date and duration of the deluge to be unleashed.

Zeus was also originally the wise leader of a political organisation (primeval Athens), in which the double party of Titans Prometheus and Epimetheus embodied the inferior gods.

In any case, these are the arguments Prometheus used to justify his uprising against 'heaven': he stole the god's fire, cheated Zeus out of the best part of a cow and even had an affair with Athena, who let him enter olymp through a back door.

Atraḫasis should not tell anyone about the coming flood, take a large supply of food with him (including live birds and even fish, as the poet added with humorous irony) and keep an eye on the hourglass for seven days from start of the catastrophe.

When Adad gathered the clouds and the winds began to roar from all ends of the world, Atraḫasis and at least one fertile woman (the masters sons too) climbed into the ship and sealed its entrance hatch from inside with earth pitch.

As if they were flies lured by the scent, they swarmed in from all sides to the altar's fire and began to feast to their hearts' – for which they later endowed Anthrahais-Noah with their immortality in gratitude and settled him with his wife on the island of Dilmun on the distant edge of the world (see Gilgamesh flood myth).

Enlil, however, who as a wise ruler was responsible for the welfare of this great civilisation, was still furious with Enki, the culprit whose treachery had once again enabled some humans to survive the genocide what was planned this time.

He decreed that from now on the humans would be familiarised with suffering and death from birth, that there would be barren and untouchable women and that their lifespan would be severely limited from the outset (in biblical terms to 120 years),[13] [v]in the hope that their reproduction would be regulated in future.

Chaos Monster and Sun God
Chaos Monster and Sun God
Cuneiform tablet with the Atra-Hasis epic in the British Museum
Illustration of K. Schmidt's thesis of how autarchic hordes began to form inter-group organisations already at the early Neolithic period.
Neolithic rock art , around 7000 BC. Depicted is a group of 11 men (left) in conflict with a party of about 20. The strategically well-positioned left team will probably come out on top, as superiority is always illustrated by larger figures.
Venus of Willendorf , the best-known Stone Age depiction of female fertility and beauty (c. 26,000 BCE)
Babylon's world map. The more vertical lines indicate the banks of Euphrates , one of the rivers, where the Igigu worked. The small circles show city states such as Uruk and the triangles mountains at the world's edge, including Ararat , on which Noah Atra-Hasis stranded. The belt is a symbol of the goodess sea serpent Tiamat surrounding earth since its creation. [ 12 ] She, the Abzu and the Flood are probably sources of the Leviathan , a human-consuming cosmic sea monster.
The Sumerian Genesis describes the Abzu as a cosmic freshwater ocean that surrounds our planet (created in its midst) above and below, so the sketch shows the same as Babylon's map, now in sideview. A bubble of breathable air clings to Earth, with the Abzu as roof like on Athrahasis' lifeboat. Further details, such as Noah's island Dilmun , are taken from the epic of Gilgamesh. An important technical detail are the sluices built into sky. Through them, the gods, skilled in construction of irrigation systems, supplied their Garden of Eden with rain, but also unleashed the Flood.