Page 187 - Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock

Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS

goddess of war and sexual love and Ea, lord of the waters, man’s natural
friend and protector.
In those days the world teemed, the people multiplied, the world bellowed like a
wild bull, and the great god was aroused by the clamour. Enlil heard the clamour
and he said to the gods in council, ‘The uproar of mankind is intolerable and sleep
is no longer possible by reason of the babel.’ So the gods agreed to exterminate
mankind.’
2
Ea, however, took pity on Utnapishtim. Speaking through the reed wall of
the king’s house he told him of the imminent catastrophe and instructed
him to build a boat in which he and his family could survive:

Tear down your house and build a boat, abandon possessions and look for life,
despise wordly goods and save your soul ... Tear down your house, I say, and
build a boat with her dimensions in proportion—her width and length in harmony.
Put aboard the seed of all living things, into the boat.
3
In the nick of time Utnapishtim built the boat as ordered. ‘I loaded into
her all that I had,’ he said, ‘loaded her with the seed of all living things’:
I put on board all my kith and kin, put on board cattle, wild beasts from open
country, all kinds of craftsmen ... The time was fulfilled. When the first light of
dawn appeared a black cloud came up from the base of the sky; it thundered
within where Adad, lord of the storm was riding ... A stupor of despair went up to
heaven when the god of the storm turned daylight to darkness, when he smashed
the land like a cup ...

On the first day the tempest blew swiftly and brought the flood ... No man could
see his fellow. Nor could the people be distinguished from the sky. Even the gods
were afraid of the flood. They withdrew; they went up to the heaven of Anu and
crouched in the outskirts. The gods cowered like curs while Ishtar cried, shrieking
aloud, ‘Have I given birth unto these mine own people only to glut with their
bodies the sea as though they were fish?’
4
Meanwhile, continued Utnapishtim:

For six days and nights the wind blew, torrent and tempest and flood
overwhelmed the world, tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts.
When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew
calm, the flood was stilled. I looked at the face of the world and there was silence.
The surface of the sea stretched as flat as a roof-top. All mankind had returned to
clay ... I opened a hatch and light fell on my face. Then I bowed low, I sat down
and I wept, the tears streamed down my face, for on every side was the waste of
water ... Fourteen leagues distant there appeared a mountain, and there the boat
grounded; on the mountain of Nisir the boat held fast, she held fast and did not
budge ... When the seventh day dawned I loosed a dove and let her go. She flew
away, but finding no resting place she returned. Then I loosed a swallow, and she
flew away but finding no resting place she returned. I loosed a raven, she saw that
the waters had retreated, she ate, she flew around, she cawed, and she did not

2 Ibid., p. 108.
Ibid., and Myths from Mesopotamia, p. 110.
3
4 Myths from Mesopotamia, pp. 112-13; Gilgamesh, pp. 109-11; Edmund Sollberger, The
Babylonian Legend of the Flood, British Museum Publications, 1984, p. 26.

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