Atrahasis
The gods flood the world not out of justice but irritation at human noise, and one man survives only because a god breaks his own oath to warn him.
- human creation to relieve divine labor
- overpopulation and noise as the flood's cause
- the flood hero as forerunner to Utnapishtim and Noah
- divine council politics
An Old Babylonian epic explaining why humans exist and why they die: the lesser gods, exhausted by labor, strike, so the mother goddess creates humanity from clay and divine blood to work in their place. When human noise keeps the gods from sleeping, they send plague, famine, and finally a flood, which the hero Atrahasis survives on a boat built at the god Enki's secret warning.
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