Utnapishtim

Uta-napishtim or Utnapishtim was a legendary king of the ancient city of Shuruppak in southern Iraq, who, according to the Gilgamesh flood myth, one of several similar narratives, survived the Flood by making and occupying a boat. He is called by different names in different traditions: Ziusudra in the earliest, Sumerian versions, later Shuruppak, Atra-hasis in the earliest Akkadian sources, and Uta-napishtim in later Akkadian sources such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. His father was the king Ubar-Tutu.

Uta-napishtim is the eighth of the antediluvian kings in Mesopotamian legend, just as Noah is the eighth from Enoch in Genesis. He would have lived around 2900 BC, corresponding to the flood deposit at Shuruppak between the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic levels. In Mesopotamian narratives he is the Flood Hero, tasked by the god Enki 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. The story of Uta-napishtim has drawn scholarly comparisons due to the similarities between it and the storylines about Noah in the Bible.