The story of Noah’s Ark first appeared between the 10th and 6th centuries BC in compositions that became part of the Jewish Torah and the Old Testament. At least several hundreds of years prior to this account, scholars from the ancient Sumerian civilization authored a remarkably similar account of the flood. In the Sumerian flood story, a hero builds an ark to preserve the species of the Earth from a great “Deluge” that is sent by the gods. This tale appears in the epics of Atrahasis and Gilgamesh which are up to 1000 years older, bringing the veracity of the later Biblical account into question.