Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Scripture Portions

Tablet II: The Plagues

Atrahasis

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The second tablet describes humanity multiplying and growing so numerous and loud that the god Enlil cannot sleep, prompting him to send a graduated series of disasters, plague, then drought, then famine, to reduce the population, each time thwarted when the god Enki secretly warns the wise man Atrahasis, who mobilizes human ritual and prayer to persuade the offended god to relent, a repeating pattern of escalation that sets up the flood of Tablet III as Enlil's final and most drastic measure.

Facts
Identity
Parent Work
Atrahasis 1
Position in the Canon
Chapter 2 1
Canonical Reference
Tablet II 1
Origins
Language
Akkadian 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Enki, Deities

This source names Enki directly: "each time thwarted when the god Enki secretly warns the wise man Atrahasis, who mobilizes human ritual and prayer to persuade the offended god to relent, a repeating pattern of escalation that sets..."

Source Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the FloodW. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard
Enlil, Deities

This source names Enlil directly: "so numerous and loud that the god Enlil cannot sleep, prompting him to send a graduated series of disasters, plague, then drought, then famine, to reduce the population, each time thwarted when the..."

Source Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the FloodW. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard
Utnapishtim, Figures

This source names Utnapishtim directly: "god Enki secretly warns the wise man Atrahasis, who mobilizes human ritual and prayer to persuade the offended god to relent, a repeating pattern of escalation that sets up the flood of Tablet III..."

Source Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the FloodW. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard

Contained In

Source Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the FloodW. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard

Originates in Language

Akkadian, Languages

Related To

Sources
1. Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood
W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Oxford University Press, 1969Tablet II, the escalating plaguesView the Source
Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others
Stephanie Dalley, Oxford University Press, 2000on the overpopulation and plague motifView the Source
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