Atra-ḫasīs (the Babylonian Flood & Creation Epic)
Humanity grew so loud the gods could not sleep — so they sent plague, famine, and a flood to thin the noise.
Also: Atrahasis · Atra-ḫasīs · Atra-hasis · Babylonian flood epic · creation of mankind · the noise of mankind · Nintu · the gods' labor
Atra-hasis is the fullest Mesopotamian account of the human story from creation to the Flood. At first the lesser gods do the back-breaking labor of digging the rivers; when they rebel, the gods create humankind — fashioned by the mother-goddess from clay mixed with the flesh and blood of a slain god — to take over the work. But humans multiply and their 'noise' grows so great that the chief god Enlil, unable to sleep, sends first plague, then drought and famine, to reduce them; each time the wise god Enki/Ea helps humanity survive. At last Enlil decrees a Flood to wipe them out, but Enki warns his devotee Atra-hasis to build a boat. Atra-hasis survives, and afterward the gods institute death, miscarriage, and other checks so humankind will never again overrun the earth.
In short
The Akkadian epic, named for its flood-hero Atra-ḫasīs ('exceedingly wise'), that runs from the creation of humankind — made from clay and the blood of a slain god to bear the gods' labor — through the gods' attempts to cull a too-numerous, too-noisy humanity by plague, drought, and finally the Flood, which one warned man survives in a boat.
Where it’s found
Atra-ḫasīs, Akkadian, Old Babylonian recension (NOT freely served on ORACC — akkadian-pending; ed. W. G. Lambert & A. R. Millard, Atra-ḫasīs: The Babylonian Story of the Flood, 1969). Its themes are grounded in our corpus through the Sumerian Flood story (ETCSL 1.7.4) and 'Enki and Ninmaḫ' (ETCSL 1.1.2).
How the idea developed across Sumer, Babylon & Assyria
The best-preserved recension is Old Babylonian (early second millennium), whose colophon names the scribe Ku-Aya (Nūr-Aya) and dates it to the reign of Ammi-ṣaduqa of Babylon (c. 17th century BCE, Middle Chronology); later Middle and Neo-Assyrian recensions also survive. Its creation-and-flood material is closely related to the flood account in Gilgameš XI and to the Sumerian Flood story (Ziusudra).
A myth, not history. The 'noise/overpopulation' motive for the Flood is distinctive to Atra-ḫasīs and contrasts with the moral-wickedness motive of Genesis 6.