The beginning of the tablet is lost, but the surviving portion begins by recounting how the gods An, Enlil, Enki, and Ninhursanga created the Sumerians and comfortable conditions for the animals to live and procreate. Kingship then descends from heaven, and the first cities are founded: Eridu, Bad-tibira, Larak, Sippar, and Shuruppak. After a missing section, we learn that the gods have decided not to save mankind from an impending flood. Zi-ud-sura, the king and gudug priest, learns of this. In the later Akkadian version recorded in the Atra-Hasis Epic, Ea, the god of the waters, warns the hero and gives him instructions for building an ark. This is missing in the Sumerian fragment, but a mention of Enki taking counsel with himself suggests similar instructions in the Sumerian version.
Flood myth
Before the missing section, the gods have decided to send a flood to destroy mankind. Enki, god of the underworld sea of fresh water and equivalent of Babylonian Ea, warns Ziusudra, the ruler of Shuruppak, to build a large boat, though the directions for the boat are also lost. When the tablet resumes, it describes the flood. A terrible storm rages for seven days and nights. "The huge boat had been tossed about on the great waters." Then Utu appears and Ziusudra opens a window, prostrates himself, and sacrifices an ox and a sheep. After another break, the text resumes with the flood apparently over, and Ziusudra prostrating himself before An and Enlil, who give him "breath eternal" for "preserving the animals and the seed of mankind". The remainder is lost. The Epic of Ziusudra adds an element at lines 258–261 not found in other versions, that after the river flood "king Ziusudra... they caused to dwell in the land of the country of Dilmun, the place where the sun rises". In this version of the story, Ziusudra's boat floats down the Euphrates river into the Persian Gulf. The Sumerian word in line 140 of the Gilgamesh flood myth was interpreted to mean "mountain" in Akkadian, although in Sumerian, KUR means "mountain" but also "land", especially a foreign country, as well as "the Underworld". Some modern scholars believe the Sumerian deluge story corresponds to localized river flooding at Shuruppak and various other cities as far north as Kish, as revealed by a layer of riverine sediments, radiocarbon dated to c. 2900 BCE, which interrupt the continuity of settlement. Polychrome pottery from the Jemdet Nasr period was discovered immediately below this Shuruppak flood stratum. None of the predynastic antediluvian rulers have been verified as historical by archaeological excavations, epigraphical inscriptions or otherwise, but the Sumerians purported them to have lived in the mythical era before the great deluge. A Sumerian document known as the Instructions of Shuruppak, dated by Kramer to about 2600 BCE, refers in a later version to Ziusudra. Kramer stated Ziusudra had become a "venerable figure in literary tradition" by the 3rd millennium BCE.
In reference to his immortality in some versions of The Death of Gilgamesh
Again in reference to his immortality in The Poem of Early Rulers
As Xisuthros in Berossus' Hellenistic account of Babylonian history
As Ziusudra in the WB-62 recension of the Sumerian king list. This text diverges from all other extant king lists by listing the city of Shuruppak as a king, and including Ziusudra as "Shuruppak's" successor.
A later version of a document known as The Instructions of Shuruppak refers to Ziusudra.
In both of the late-dated king lists cited above, the name Zi-ud-sura was inserted immediately before a flood event included in all versions of the Sumerian king list, apparently creating a connection between the ancient Flood myth and a historic flood mentioned in the king list. However, no other king list mentions Zi-ud-sura.
