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لوح مسماري عن أسطورة أتراخاسيس، أسطورة الطوفان البابلي ___
Cuneiform tablet: Atra-hasis, Babylonian flood myth Period: Neo-Babylonian or Achaemenid Date:ca. 7th–6th century B.C Geography: Mesopotamia Dimensions: 2.5 x 2.25 x 1 in. (6.35 x 5.72 x 2.54 cm This clay tablets fragment contains part of the ancient Akkadian flood story, often called Atra-hasis. The epic tells of how the gods created humans to alleviate their own work, grew tired of the noise of the peoples on earth, and sent various natural disasters – including a flood – to destroy the human race. Because the story describes the intervention of a god to save one man (Atra-hasis) by giving him instruction for building a boat, it is often compared to the biblical story of Noah. The text on this tablet, which reads left to right, describes the noise on earth that led to the gods’ decision to destroy humanity on the front. On the reverse, the very end of the story appears – the gods promise to never send another flood, allowing people to "last forever" – as well as the name of the Mesopotamian flood survivor, who in this text is given the name Ut-napishtim. The epic is best-known from copies of the text dating to the Old Babylonian period, but several examples, including this text, show that the story continued to be copied in later periods The Present Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art – USA Accession Number: 86.11.378a |