Flood myth

A flood myth is a story about a huge flood that destroys the world, often sent by gods as a way to punish people. These stories often talk about how the flood is like a way to clean or refresh the world, getting rid of bad things before starting again. In many of these myths, there is a special person who helps save part of humanity or shows what people really want—to keep living.

"The Deluge", frontispiece to Gustave Doré's illustrated edition of the Bible

The oldest known flood story comes from the ancient Sumerian people in Mesopotamia, written down around 1800 BCE. Similar stories appear in many other cultures too. For example, the Bible has the story of a big flood in the book of Genesis, Hinduism has its own version, and Greek mythology tells the story of a man named Deucalion. Even some Native American cultures have flood myths of their own.

Mythologies

Ancient Near East

The Epic of Gilgamesh (around 2100–1800 BCE) shares a story of a huge flood from which only one family survives. This tale comes from the Atra-Hasis epic. In this story, the gods decide to send a flood to end human noise. The god Enki warns a priest named Atrahasis to build a boat. The family survives, saving humanity.

The Sumerian Genesis describes the Abzu as a cosmic freshwater ocean that surrounds our planet (created in its midst) above and below, so the sketch shows the same as Babylon's map, now in sideview. A bubble of breathable air clings to Earth, with the Abzu's boundary layer as a roof like on Athrahasis-Noah's lifeboat. Further details, such as Noah’s island Dilmun and the tunnel (through it, the sun god Shamash traveled dry-footed from west to east during night), are taken from the Epic of Gilgamesh. An important technical detail are also the sluices built into sky. Through them, the gods, skilled in construction of irrigation systems, supplied their Garden of Eden with rain, but also unleashed the Flood.

The Eridu Genesis (around 1600 BCE) is another flood story found in tablets from Nippur. In the Genesis flood narrative from the Hebrew Bible, God decides to flood the Earth because humans have become corrupt. He tells Noah to build an ark to save his family and pairs of animals. After the flood, God promises never to destroy the Earth this way again and makes the rainbow a sign of this promise.

South Asia

In Hinduism, stories like the Satapatha Brahmana and the Puranas tell of a great flood. The Matsya form of Vishnu warns a man named Manu to build a large boat. In Zoroastrianism, a drought is turned into a flood by a god, and one man survives in an ark with his cattle.

George Smith, who discovered and translated the Epic of Gilgamesh

Ancient Greece

In Plato's Timaeus (around 360 BCE), the god Zeus sends a flood to punish humans for their wars. The Titan Prometheus tells his son Deucalion to build an ark, and they survive on a mountain when the waters go down.

North America

The Cheyenne people have a tradition of a flood changing their history, possibly in the Missouri River Valley. The Blackfeet tell a story where a deity named Old Man gathers people on a mountain during a flood and gives them different colored water to drink, leading to different languages. The Hopi and other Puebloans also have flood legends.

Historicity

Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia was often flooded because it sat in a river valley. For people living there, big floods could destroy everything they knew. At a place called Shuruppak, scientists found a layer of sand and clay from around 2900 BCE, showing a big flood happened. In stories from that area, a king named Uta-napishtim built a boat to survive a flood.

Mediterranean Basin

Earth's sea level rose dramatically in the millennia after the Last Glacial Maximum.

Some historians think that old stories of big floods might come from people finding seashells and fish fossils far away from the sea. Ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans found these and wondered if the Earth was once covered in water.

There are ideas about a big wave in the Mediterranean Sea caused by a volcanic eruption around 1630–1600 BCE. This wave affected islands but not mainland Greece, so it was not a huge, widespread flood.

Black Sea deluge hypothesis

One idea says that around 5600 BCE, a lot of water suddenly poured from the Mediterranean Sea into the Black Sea. This idea is debated among scientists.

The Eve of the Deluge, by John Martin, 1840. Depicts a comet causing the Great Flood.

Comets

A long time ago, some people thought a big flood might have been caused by a comet passing close to Earth. One scientist from the 1690s thought this, and later another scientist wrote a book saying a comet caused the flood described in stories. Another writer in the 1800s thought a comet hit Earth long ago, causing big changes.

Asteroid impact

One scientist thinks stories of big floods from many cultures might remember a time when a space rock hit the ocean between Africa and Antarctica. This could have created huge waves that flooded lands.

End of the Last Glacial Period

Some people think that big floods that happened when the last ice age was ending might have inspired stories that are still told today. One famous story about a lost land might remember a time when rising sea levels covered areas near the Mediterranean Sea.

Art

Here are some artworks about great floods from different cultures.

One shows the god Vishnu helping a man named Manu in a boat. Another shows a character from Ojibwe stories. There are also paintings like The Great Flood and The Deluge, as well as a picture of Noah's Ark from an old book.