Atra-Hasis (Akkadian: 𒀜𒊏𒄩𒋀, romanized: Atra-ḫasīs) is an 18th-century BC Akkadian epic, recorded in various versions on clay tablets and named for one of its protagonists, the priest Atra-Hasis ('exceedingly wise'). The narrative has four focal points: An organisation of allied gods shaping Mesopotamia agriculturally; a political conflict between them, pacified by creating the first human couples; the mass reproduction of these humans; and a great deluge, as handed down in a remarkably similar manner in various other flood myths of mankind. Numerous archaeological discoveries suggest the occurrence of a real historicaly catastrophe in the background, closely timed with the relatively sudden rise in sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age. As several later myths – "even those where real floods are unlikely to have ocourrent" – also the epic links its flood story with the intention of the upper gods to eliminate their "imperfect" artificial creatures.
The name "Atra-Hasis" first appears on the Sumerinan King List as a ruler of Shuruppak in the times before that flood. The oldest known copy of the epic tradition concerning Atrahasis can be dated by colophon (scribal identification) to the reign of Hammurabi’s great-grandson, Ammi-Saduqa (1646–1626 BC). However, various Old Babylonian dialect fragments exist, and the epic continued to be copied into the first millennium BC.
