Floods are among the most powerful and devastating of natural events. Long after the water has subsided, people remember and talk about the loss and destruction. Moreover, the scale of devastation is often so great as to convince people that the flooding is the work of supernaturalrelated to forces beyond the norma! world; magical or miraculous beings.

Small wonder, then, that flood myths occur in cultures around the world. One of the most common tells of a great flood that occurred in the distant past. The biblical story of Noah and the ark he built to save certain people and animals from the flood is just one version of a much older myth from Mesopotamiaarea between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, most of present-day Iraq. Similar stories appear wherever people have experienced floods.

Some...