Flood myth

Topics Year 4/5
This unit is part of Earliest Civilisations: Ancient Sumer Literature

Download all files

Objectives

History

Know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; characteristic features of past non-European societies.
Understand historical concepts such as similarity, difference and significance.
Gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between cultural, religious and social history.

English

Make comparisons across books.
Summarise the main ideas drawn from more than one paragraph.
Participate in discussion about books that they read.

Lesson Planning

Explore the similarities between The Epic of Gilgamesh and the story of Noah’s Ark from the Bible.

Teaching Outcomes:

To compare the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh with Noah’s Ark story from the Bible.
To compare and discuss stories written in two different cultures about a great flood.

Children will:

Compare two stories about a great flood that were written in different cultures.
Explain how the finding of a story similar to a Bible story caused a sensation in Victorian times.

Planning

Provided Resources

The ‘Flood Tablet’ from Nineveh images and translation

Unit Resources

You Will Need

The Last Quest of Gilgamesh retold by Ludmila Zeman
Gilgamesh the Hero retold by Geraldine McCaughrean
Oxford Reading Tree TreeTops Myths and Legends: Level 17: The Legend Of Gilgamesh by Geraldine McCaughrean

Weblinks

The ‘Flood Tablet' from artsandculture.google.com
Narration about the Flood Tablet from bbc.co.uk
Noah’s Ark story from bibleforchildren.org
Noah’s Ark story from biblegateway.com
Comparison between the Epic of Gilgamesh and Noah’s Ark stories and
Comparison between the Epic of Gilgamesh and Noah’s Ark stories from icr.org and gotquestions.org