The Flood Myth
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.6K Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Thousands of years before the story of Noah and the Ark, people in ancient Mesopotamia were already telling tales of a devastating divine flood. Written into the Epic of Atrahasis, this ancient story describes a man chosen to survive catastrophe by building a great boat and preserving life from destruction.
Today, Tristan Hughes is joined by Sophus Helle to explore this legend from ancient Babylonian folklore. What does the story of Atrahasis reveal about ancient Babylonian beliefs? How similar is it to the biblical account of Noah? And why did the memory of a great flood become one of humanity’s most enduring stories?
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Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan. The producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music courtesy of Epidemic Sounds
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Tudorburg forest? |
| 0:04.0 | What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? |
| 0:07.0 | Or what made Alexander truly great? |
| 0:10.0 | With a subscription to history hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. |
| 0:17.0 | You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week |
| 0:22.5 | covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. |
| 0:26.5 | Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe. When the gods were man, they bore the toil, carried the load. |
| 0:50.5 | The load of the gods was great. The toil was heavy. The misery too much. |
| 1:06.2 | Those are the opening lines to one of the greatest epics of antiquity. |
| 1:12.7 | Performed to crowds of people in the streets of Babylon and beyond some 4,000 years ago, a story about their creation, |
| 1:21.2 | how humans came into existence, and how they were living in a world that had followed a divine |
| 1:27.2 | flood. |
| 1:29.0 | We know the epic today as the Atra Harsis, |
| 1:33.2 | named after its central character, |
| 1:35.7 | a man who survived this divine flood by building a great boat, |
| 1:40.7 | taking some companions with him and two of every animal. |
| 1:45.0 | Sound familiar? |
| 1:47.0 | This Babylonian epic has many striking similarities to the biblical flood, |
| 1:53.0 | of Noah and His Ark. |
| 1:55.0 | And today we're going to shine a light on it. |
| 2:00.0 | Welcome to the ancients. |
| 2:02.5 | I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, |
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