Mount Nimush (Nisir)
The mountain in Gilgamesh where the flood boat grounded, the Mesopotamian counterpart of Ararat, often linked to a peak in Iraqi Kurdistan.
- Named in
- Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI
- Older reading
- Nisir; now usually read Nimush
- Proposed identification
- Pir Omar Gudrun, near Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan
- Elevation of candidate
- About 2,588 m
- Also mentioned
- Annals of Ashurnasirpal II
- Compare
- Mountains of Ararat (Genesis 8:4)
What is Mount Nimush known for?
Mount Nimush, once read Nisir, is the mountain where Utnapishtim's boat comes to rest in Tablet XI of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. The boat sticks fast for seven days, and then he releases a dove, a swallow and a raven, which does not return. The scene closely parallels Noah's ark grounding on the mountains of Ararat in Genesis.
The name also appears in the annals of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II as a mountain on a campaign route east of the Tigris. Many scholars identify it with Pir Omar Gudrun near Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan, though this is not certain.
No expedition has found evidence of a boat there, and mainstream scholars treat the epic's flood as literature built on older Mesopotamian traditions, not a geographic record.
The landing place of the flood boat in Gilgamesh, mirroring Noah's dove and raven.
Mentioned on these pages
Sources
- Wikipedia, 'Mount Nisir'Reference
- Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet XI (tr. R. Campbell Thompson), sacred-texts.comPrimary text
- Genesis 8 (KJV), Bible GatewayPrimary text
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