The Flood (Deluge)
The gods resolve to drown humankind — and one warned man builds a boat to carry life through the deluge.
Also: the flood · deluge · abubu · Ziusudra · Atrahasis · Atra-ḫasīs · Utnapishtim · flood myth · the ark
The Flood is Mesopotamia's most famous myth. The gods, disturbed by humankind, resolve to wipe it out with a deluge; but the wise god Enki/Ea warns one righteous man — Ziusudra in Sumerian, Atrahasis and Utnapishtim in Akkadian — to build a great boat and load it with his family, craftsmen, and animals. The flood rages, humanity is destroyed, and the survivor emerges to offer a sacrifice over which the gods, who have gone hungry without offerings, gather eagerly. Granted survival, the hero is set apart. The tale appears in several Mesopotamian works and is, with creation, the most discussed of all ancient Near Eastern parallels to the Bible.
In short
The myth of a great deluge sent by the gods to destroy humankind, survived by one favored man who builds a boat, saves living things, and emerges to offer sacrifice — the Mesopotamian Flood tradition.
Where it’s found
'The Flood story' (Sumerian, Ziusudra; ETCSL 1.7.4, in corpus); Atra-ḫasīs III and Gilgameš XI (akkadian-pending; Lambert & Millard; George)
How the idea developed across Sumer, Babylon & Assyria
A clear development across three works and two languages: the Sumerian Flood story (Ziusudra), the Akkadian Atra-ḫasīs (the fullest creation-to-Flood account, the gods sending the Flood because humanity is too noisy/numerous), and Gilgameš XI (Utnapishtim retells it to Gilgameš). The hero's name and the divine motive shift; the boat-warning-survival-sacrifice core is constant.