Berossus's version of the Flood

Berossus’s version of the Flood, as reported by the Greek Abydenus, relates:

Berossus repeats the details regarding the release of the birds.

When Sisithros (which is atra-asis reversed) was taken by the gods to their abode, he explained to the other people in the ark that they were “in Armenia” and directed them back on foot to Babylonia.

In this version not only the tie-in with Sippar, the spaceport, but also confirmation that Sisithros was instructed to “sail immediately to Armenia”—to the land of Ararat.

As soon as Atra-Hasis had landed, he slaughtered some animals and roasted them on a fire.

The exhausted and hungry gods “gathered like flies over the offering.”

Suddenly they realized that Man and the food he grew and the cattle he raised were essential. “When at length Enlil arrived and saw the ark, he was wroth.”

But the logic of the situation and Enki’s persuasion prevailed.

Enlil made his peace with the remnants of Mankind and took Atra-Hasis/Utnapishtim in his craft up to the Eternal Abode of the Gods.

Another factor in the quick decision to make peace with Mankind may have been the progressive abatement of the Flood and the reemergence of dry land and the vegetation upon it.

The Nefilim feared that Earth would become uninhabitable forever.

As they landed on Ararat, they saw that the Earth was still habitable. To live on it, they needed man.

Aligning the biblical and Sumerian information, we find that the harsh times, the “accursation of Earth,” began in the time of Noah’s father Lamech.

His hopes that the birth of Noah (“respite”) would mark the end of the hardships.

Many scholars believe that the ten biblical pre-Diluvial patriarchs (Adam to Noah) somehow parallel the ten pre-Diluvial rulers of the Sumerian king lists.

These lists do not apply the divine titles DIN.GIR or EN to the last two of the ten, and treat Ziusudra/Utnapishtim and his father Ubar-Tutu as men.

The latter two parallel Noah and his father Lamech; and according to the Sumerian lists, the two reigned a combined total of 64,800 years until the Deluge occurred. The last ice age, from 75,000 to 13,000 years ago, lasted 62,000 years. Since the hardships began when Ubartutu/Lamech was already reigning, the 62,000 fit perfectly into the 64,800.

Moreover, the extremely harsh conditions lasted, according to the Atra-Hasis epic, seven shars, or 25,200 years. The scientists discovered evidence of an extremely harsh period from circa 38,000 to 13,000 years ago—a span of 25,000 years.

Once again, the Mesopotamian evidence and modern scientific findings corroborate each other.

Our endeavor to unravel the puzzle of the Deluge, then, focuses on Earth’s climatic changes, and in particular the abrupt collapse of the ice age some 13,000 years ago.

As commanded by Enki, Atra-Hasis sent everybody aboard the ark while he himself stayed outside to await the signal for boarding the vessel and sealing it off.

Providing a “human-interest” detail, the ancient text tells us that Atra-Hasis, though ordered to stay outside the vessel, “was in and out; he could not sit, could not crouch … his heart was broken; he was vomiting gall.” But then:

…the Moon disappeared… The appearance of the weather changed; The rains roared in the clouds… The winds became savage… …the Deluge set out, its might came upon the people like a battle; One person did not see another, they were not recognizable in the destruction. The Deluge bellowed like a bull; The winds whinnied like a wild ass. The darkness was dense; The Sun could not be seen. The Epic of Gilgamesh is specific about the direction from which the storm came: It came from the south. Clouds, winds, rain, and darkness indeed preceded the tidal wave which first tore down the “posts of Nergal” in the Lower World: With the glow of dawn a black cloud arose from the horizon; inside it the god of storms thundered… Everything that had been bright turned to blackness… For one day the south storm blew, gathering speed as it blew, submerging the mountains… Six days and six nights blows the wind as the South Storm sweeps the land. When the seventh day arrived, the Deluge of the South Storm subsided.

The references to the “south storm,” “south wind” clearly indicate the direction from which the Deluge arrived, its clouds and winds, the “heralds of the storm,” moving “over hill and plain” to reach Mesopotamia.

A storm and an avalanche of water originating in the Antarctic would reach Mesopotamia via the Indian Ocean after first engulfing the hills of Arabia, then inundating the Tigris–Euphrates plain. The “Epic of Gilgamesh” also informs us that before the people and their land were submerged, the “dams of the dry land” and its dikes were “torn out”: the continental coastlines were overwhelmed and swept over.

The biblical version of the Deluge story reports that the “bursting of the fountains of the Great Deep” preceded the “opening of the sluices of heaven.” First, the waters of the “Great Deep” (what a descriptive name for the southernmost, frozen Antarctic seas) broke loose out of their icy confinement; only then did the rains begin to pour from the skies.

This confirmation of our understanding of the Deluge is repeated, in reverse, when the Deluge subsided. First the “Fountains of the Deep [were] dammed”; then the rain “was arrested from the skies.”

After the first immense tidal wave, its waters were still “coming and going back” in huge waves. Then the waters began “going back,” and “they were less” after 150 days, when the ark came to rest between the peaks of Ararat. The avalanche of water, having come from the southern seas, went back to the southern seas.