When the gods were Man

Junior gods had to work hard all day. Tired of this they rebel against the senior gods. The rebellion is defeated. One god is killed and his blood mixed with spit and clay. From this the first humans are created to do all the hard work instead. So says the Atrahasis Epic from Sippar (southern Iraq) around 1700 BC.
The humans reproduce out of control. The deafening drumming of their heartbeats stops Enlil, king of the gods, from sleeping. He sends plague and famine to reduce their numbers. Each time Enki, god of wisdom, instructs a man called Atrahasis (“Exceedingly Wise”) how to survive the disasters.

Finally Enlil destroys mankind with a catastrophic flood. Again Enki has instructions for Atrahasis. He should build a boat and load it with his family and all kinds of animals. Without Man there are no more offerings for the gods, so Enlil is forced to accept the continued existence of humans after The Flood. But to keep their numbers down, mankind must suffer infertility and childhood mortality.

This copy of the story was written by the learner scribe Ipiq-Ayya as part of his training. The three chapters of the Atrahasis Epic were each written on their own tablet. A full set by him survives. Curiously the dates written on the tablets show that they were not written in order. Ipiq-Ayya belonged to a family of scribes devoted to Enki, the god who saved mankind. His tablets were found in the library of one of his relatives. The story was perhaps a favourite in his family.

This story was copied and re-copied over the centuries. Examples are known from over 1000 years after Ipiq-Ayya’s time. The Flood story episode is better known from the famous Epic of Gilgamesh, and of course from the version in the Bible.