Ziusudra: The Sumerian Noah Settled in Dilmun Forever

Ziusudra is the hero of the Sumerian flood story, sometimes called the Eridu Genesis. Warned by a god, he survives the seven-day flood in a huge boat and is granted eternal life in Dilmun.

Ziusudra, 'life of long days', is the hero of the Sumerian flood story, sometimes called the Eridu Genesis. It survives on a single damaged tablet from Nippur, written around 1600 BCE. It is the oldest known version of the flood narrative in the language in which the tradition began. Its beginning describes the creation of humans and the founding of the first cities, including Eridu and Shuruppak.

In the ETCSL translation, Ziusudra is a king and a devout priest. A god, clearly Enki, speaks to him beside a wall and reveals the decision of the gods' assembly to destroy humanity. The storm lasts seven days and seven nights, and a huge boat is tossed on the waters. Then Utu, the sun, comes out, and Ziusudra opens a window of the boat and bows down.

The end is the remarkable part. An and Enlil 'granted him life like a god, they brought down to him eternal life', and 'they settled Zi-ud-sura the king in an overseas country, in the land Dilmun, where the sun rises'. Dilmun is usually linked to Bahrain and the Gulf coast.

The Instructions of Shuruppak are framed as advice from his father, Shuruppak, to Ziusudra. Two thousand years later, Berossus told the same story in Greek, calling the hero Xisuthrus, who buried the ancient writings at Sippar before the Flood. His name, in its different forms, runs through nearly two thousand years of Mesopotamian writing.