The flood story recurs in many ancient civilizations, even in distant parts of the world, though the nature of the story may be very different in some cultures. There do seem to be links between the flood story as told in the ancient Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh and the flood story of Noah as told in Genesis, in fact the older Sumerian tale may have served as the basis for the biblical account. There is recent evidence that there may have been a great flood in the area of the Black Sea which may have become a continuing tribal memory that was eventually embodied in The Epic of Gilgamesh and reshaped to fit the theology of the Israelites for the tale told in Genesis. The two versions of the flood story have many points of agreement, suggesting that they are somehow connected, and in the Noah story, the role of God differs from the role of the gods in Gilgamesh.
In literature, the ultimate expression of a society constantly under siege may be seen in The Epic of Gilgamesh. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a cycle of poems preserved on 12 incomplete Akkadian-language tablets found at Nineveh in the library of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. The tablets were found in the nineteenth century and date from the seventh century B.C. The time of the tale is one in which human beings felt close to the gods and believed that the gods intervened in their lives. Gilgamesh is a ruler who is seen as too devoted to war, and the gods hear the lament of the people and send their own created hero, Enkidu, to do battle with Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh defeats Enkidu, after which they are friends. They set out together against Humbaba to do battle. When Gilgamesh refuses the marriage proposal of the goddess of love, Ishtar, she sends a divine bull against him, and he and Enkidu kill it. Enkidu dreams that he must die for his role in killing the bull, and he does die. Gilgamesh seeks a way to see that his friend is granted eternal life and sets out on a journ...