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Uta-napishtim or Utnapishtim (Akkadian: 𒌓𒍣, "he has found life") was a legendary king of the ancient city of Shuruppak in southern Iraq, who, according to the Gilgamesh flood myth, one of several similar narratives, survived the Flood by making and occupying a boat.
He is called by different names in different traditions: Ziusudra ("Life of long days", rendered Xisuthros, Ξίσουθρος in Berossus) in the earliest, Sumerian versions, later Shuruppak (after his city), Atra-hasis ("exceeding wise") in the earliest Akkadian sources, and Uta-napishtim ("he has found life") in later Akkadian sources such as the Epic of Gilgamesh.[1] His father was the king Ubar-Tutu ("Friend of the god Tutu").
Uta-napishtim is the eighth of the antediluvian kings in Mesopotamian legend, just as Noah is the eighth from Enoch in Genesis.[1] He would have lived around 2900 BC, corresponding to the flood deposit at Shuruppak between the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic levels.[1]
In Mesopotamian narratives he is the Flood Hero, tasked by the god Enki (Akkadian Ea) to create a giant ship to be called Preserver of Life in preparation for a giant flood that will wipe out all life. The character appears in Tablet XI of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, at the culmination of Gilgamesh's search for immortality.[2] The story of Uta-napishtim has drawn scholarly comparisons due to the similarities between it and the storylines about Noah in the Bible.[2]
- ^ a b c William W. Hallo and William Kelly Simpson (1971). The Ancient Near East: A History.
- ^ a b George, Andrew (2003). The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, Volume 1. Oxford University Press. pp. 70, 152–155. ISBN 9780199278411.