Position in chronology
Cuneiform tablet- Atra-hasis, Babylonian flood myth MET 266810
Translation · reference
ExperimentalSource: Wikimedia Commons file: File:Cuneiform tablet- Atra-hasis, Babylonian flood myth MET 266810.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACuneiform_tablet-_Atra-hasis%2C_Babylonian_flood_myth_MET_266810.jpg. Description: Babylonian or Achaemenid; Cuneiform tablet; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed
Why it matters
Transliteration
Scholarly note
Tablet image sourced from Wikimedia Commons (CC0). No scholarly translation referenced in source metadata. Source description: Babylonian or Achaemenid; Cuneiform tablet; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed
Attribution
Image: This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project by the Metropolitan Museum of Art . See the Image and Data Resources Open Access Policy — Wikimedia Commons. source
Translation excerpted from Wikimedia Commons file: File:Cuneiform tablet- Atra-hasis, Babylonian flood myth MET 266810.jpg. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACuneiform_tablet-_Atra-hasis%2C_Babylonian_flood_myth_MET_266810.jpg. Description: Babylonian or Achaemenid; Cuneiform tablet; Clay-Tablets-Inscribed.
Related tablets
Related sources
The single most important literary discovery of the 19th century. It rewired the understanding of the Bible's literary context and proved that the Mesopotamian flood tradition is older. It is the oldest surviving epic poetry in human history.
The literary tradition is no longer anonymous from this point. Authorship — the idea that a specific human voice composes a specific work — enters the historical record with her.
The single most influential Mesopotamian king list — the model for every later attempt to chronicle the deep history of the region. It transmits the political theology of divinely granted kingship, an idea that would echo through Babylon, Assyria, and into the Hebrew Bible. The Weld-Blundell prism (WB 444) at the Ashmolean is the most complete surviving copy.