The Flood and the Plant of Life

Utnapishtim reveals the secret of the gods: how Ea warned him of the coming deluge, how he built a ship and rode out six days of storm, sent forth dove, swallow, and raven, and was made immortal — a fate no council will grant Gilgamesh. Failing even to stay awake six nights, and losing the plant of youth to a serpent at a well, Gilgamesh comes home empty-handed but points to the walls of Uruk: not deathless flesh, but the work of a man's hands, is what endures. An older coda raises Enkidu's ghost to speak of the house of dust — and frames George Smith, who in 1872 read the Flood tablet older than Genesis.