Noah's Ark and the Ziusudra Epic
Sumerian Origins of the Flood Myth
by Robert M. Best
A reconstruction of a lost legend about Ziusudra (Noah) a Sumerian king whose river barge got caught in local flooding of the Euphrates River about 2900 BC.
Noah's Ark and the Ziusudra EpicSumerian Origins of the Flood Mythby Robert M. BestA reconstruction of a lost legend about Ziusudra (Noah) a Sumerian king whose river barge got caught in local flooding of the Euphrates River about 2900 BC. |
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| Ziusudra was king of the Sumerian city Shuruppak at the end of
the Jemdet Nasr period about 2900 BC. A six-day thunderstorm caused the Euphrates River to
rise and flood Shuruppak and a few other cities in southern Sumer. The ark was
a commercial river barge that was hauling grain, beer, and other cargo including a few
hundred animals when the storm began. The runaway barge floated down the river into the Persian (Arabian) Gulf where it grounded in an estuary at the mouth of the Euphrates River. Ziusudra then offered a sacrifice at the top of a hill. The word hill was later misunderstood to mean mountain by storytellers who falsely assumed that the nearby barge had grounded on the top of a mountain. This book reconstructs the original legend and focuses on what would be physically possible, technologically practical, and consistent with archaeological facts and facts about flooding in the Euphrates River valley. |
April 1999
Enlil Press Distributed by Eisenbrauns Ancient History/Mythology 2 maps, 11 illustrations Carton quantity: 20 ISBN 0-9667840-1-4 $38.00 US for singles, |
© 1999 Enlil Press. All rights reserved.