Friday, September 03, 2010

The Flood story at Ugarit

THE FLOOD STORY AT UGARIT: It isn't terribly well known, but a version of the Mesopotamian Flood story was found among those "Canaanite" alphabetic cuneiform texts at Ugarit. This tablet, however, was written in Akkadian and tells the story in the first person with Atrahasis as the Flood hero. The name of the hero is Utnapishtim in the Gilgamesh Epic and Atrahasis in the Atrahasis epic. Duane Smith has posted an edition and translation of the Flood story from Ugarit at Abnormal Interests.

I published a discussion and partial translation of this tablet in my article "The Flood Hero as King and Priest," JNES 53 (1995): 199-214, esp. pp. 205-206. Despite its fragmentary nature, it is a very interesting text.