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==Other flood accounts==

==Other flood accounts==

The vast majority of cultures around the world have remnants of traditions which state their ancestors escaped a great and cataclysmic flooding of the world. Many of these tales involve a vessel carrying a few human survivors, animals, and a landing on a mountain as the waters drained away.

The vast majority of cultures around the world have remnants of traditions which state their ancestors escaped a great and cataclysmic flooding of the world. Many of these accounts involve a vessel carrying a few human survivors, animals, and a landing on a mountain as the waters drained away.

===Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh===

===Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh===

Excavations in the ancient city of [[Ninevah]] in 1853 unearthed 12 clay tablets detailing the story of a mythical king of Uruk named Gilgamesh, and written between 2750-2500 B.C. [http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/index.html]  Tablet 11 of this ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' had the hero learn the secret of immortality by going to the island of Utnapishtim, where he discovers that Utnapishtim is also the builder of the ark which carried man and animals on the seas of the flood.

Excavations in the ancient city of [[Nineveh]] in 1853 unearthed 12 clay tablets detailing the story of a mythical king of Uruk named Gilgamesh, and written between 2750-2500 B.C. [http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/index.html]  Tablet 11 of this ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' had the hero learn the secret of immortality by going to the island of Utnapishtim, where he discovers that Utnapishtim is also the builder of the ark which carried man and animals on the seas of the flood.

:''Six days and seven nights came the wind and flood,the storm flattening the land.When the seventh day arrived, the storm was pounding,the flood was a war--struggling with itself like a woman writhing (in labor).The sea calmed, fell still, the whirlwind (and) flood stopped up.I looked around all day long--quiet had set in and all the human beings had turned to clay!'' [http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab11.htm]

:''Six days and seven nights came the wind and flood,the storm flattening the land.When the seventh day arrived, the storm was pounding,the flood was a war--struggling with itself like a woman writhing (in labor).The sea calmed, fell still, the whirlwind (and) flood stopped up.I looked around all day long--quiet had set in and all the human beings had turned to clay!'' [http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab11.htm]