Gilgamesh Flood Myth - Material Altered or Omitted

Material Altered or Omitted

The Epic of Atrahasis provides additional information on the flood and flood hero that is omitted in Gilgamesh XI and other versions of the Ancient Near East flood myth. According to Atrahasis III ii, lines 40–47 the flood hero was at a banquet when the storm and flood began: "He invited his people ... to a banquet ... He sent his family on board. They ate and they drank. But he (Atrahasis) was in and out. He could not sit, could not crouch, for his heart was broken and he was vomiting gall."

According to Tigay, Atrahasis tablet III iv, lines 6–9 clearly identify the flood as a local river flood: "Like dragonflies they have filled the river. Like a raft they have moved in to the edge . Like a raft they have moved in to the riverbank." The sentence "Like dragonflies they have filled the river." was changed in Gilgamesh XI line 123 to "Like the spawn of fishes, they fill the sea." Tigay holds that we can see the mythmaker's hand at work here, changing a local river flood into an ocean deluge.

Most other authorities interpret the Atrahasis flood as universal. A. R. George, and Lambert and Millard make it clear that the gods' intention in Atrahasis is to "wipe out mankind". The flood destroys "all of the earth". The use of a comparable metaphor in the Gilgamesh epic suggests that the reference to "dragonflies the river" is simply an evocative image of death rather than a literal description of the flood However, the local river flood in Atrahasis could accomplish destruction of all "mankind" and "all of the earth" if the scope of "mankind" is limited to all of the people living on "all of the land" of the flood plains in the lower river valley known to the Atrahasis writer.

Other editorial changes were made to the Atrahasis text in Gilgamesh to lessen the suggestion that the gods may have experienced human needs. For example, Atrahasis OB III, 30–31 "The Anunnaki, the great gods ing in thirst and hunger" was changed in Gilgamesh XI, line 113 to "The gods feared the deluge." Sentences in Atrahasis III iv were omitted in Gilgamesh, e.g. "She was surfeited with grief and thirsted for beer" and "From hunger they were suffering cramp."

These and other editorial changes to Atrahasis are documented and described in the book by Prof. Tigay (see below) who is associate professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literature in the University of Pennsylvania. Prof. Tigay comments: "The dropping of individual lines between others which are preserved, but are not synonymous with them, appears to be a more deliberate editorial act. These lines share a common theme, the hunger and thirst of the gods during the flood."

Although the 18th century BC copy of the Atrahasis (Atra-Hasis) epic post-dates the early Gilgamesh epic, we do not know whether the Old-Akkadian Gilgamesh tablets included the flood story, because of the fragmentary nature of surviving tablets. Some scholars argue that they did not. Tigay, for example, maintains that three major additions to the Gilgamesh epic, namely the prologue, the flood story (tablet XI), and tablet XII, were added by an editor or editors, possibly by Sin-leqi-unninni, to whom the entire epic was later attributed. According to this view, the flood story in tablet XI was based on a late version of the Atrahasis story.