Utnapishtim

Uta-napishtim ("he has found life" Akkadian: 𒌓𒍣), was a legendary king of the ancient city of Shuruppak in southern Iraq, who, according to several surviving narratives, survived the Flood by making a boat.

He is called by different names in different traditions: Ziusudra ("Life of long days", rendered Xisuthros, Ξίσουθρος in Berossus) in the earliest, Sumerian versions, later Shuruppak (after his city), Atra-hasis ("exceeding wise") in the earliest Akkadian sources, and Uta-napishtim ("he has found life") in later Akkadian sources such as the Epic of Gilgamesh.^[1] His father was the king Ubar-Tutu ("Friend of the god Tutu").

Uta-napishtim is the eighth of the antediluvian kings in Mesopotamian legend, just as Noah is the eighth from Enoch in Genesis.^[1] He would have lived around 2900 BC, corresponding to the flood deposit at Shuruppak between the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic levels.^[1]

In Mesopotamian narratives he is the Flood Hero, tasked by the god Enki (Akkadian Ea) to create a giant ship to be called Preserver of Life in preparation for a giant flood that will wipe out all life. The character appears in Tablet XI of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, at the culmination of Gilgamesh's search for immortality.^[2] The story of Uta-napishtim has drawn scholarly comparisons due to the similarities between it and the storylines about Noah in the Bible.^[2]