Ignatius Donnelly set two Chaldean flood stories side by side in Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, and he read both as memories of Atlantis. In his words they are “unequally developed, indeed, but exhibiting a remarkable agreement.”
The account of Berosus
The shorter version comes from Berosus, the Chaldean priest who wrote a history of Babylon for Greek readers. Donnelly quotes it from Lenormant.
Cronos warns Xisuthros of a flood and orders him to bury the writings and build a vessel.
"Obartès Elbaratutu being dead, his son Xisuthros (Khasisatra) reigned eighteen sares (64,800 years). It was under him that the Great Deluge took place, the history of which is told in the sacred documents as follows: Cronos (Ea) appeared to him in his sleep, and announced that on the fifteenth of the month of Daisios (the Assyrian month Sivan--a little before the summer solstice) all men should perish by a flood. He therefore commanded him to take the beginning, the middle, and the end of whatever was consigned to writing, and to bury it in the City of the Sun, at Sippara; then to build a vessel, and to enter it with his family and dearest friends; to place in this vessel provisions to eat and drink, and to cause animals, birds, and quadrupeds to enter it; lastly, to prepare everything for navigation. And when Xisuthros inquired in what direction he should steer his bark, he was answered, 'toward the gods,' and enjoined to pray that good might come of it for men.
Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, Part II, ch. III, "The Deluge of the Chaldeans", Project Gutenberg eBook #4032, public domain
In the rest of the account, Xisuthros lets birds loose three times. When they stop coming back, he sees the ship has grounded on a mountain, sacrifices to the gods and vanishes with his wife, his daughter and the pilot. A voice tells the others to go back to Babylon and dig up the writings buried at Sippara, and they rebuild the city.
The Nineveh tablets
The longer version is the one George Smith was the first to decipher on cuneiform tablets found at Nineveh. In the account Donnelly quotes from François Lenormant, it is the eleventh tablet of an epic of Uruk, in which the hero, sick with a kind of leprosy, seeks out Khasisatra, the survivor of the flood whom the gods made immortal. Ea warns him in a dream and gives the measures of the ship. Six days and nights of wind, rain and water-spout follow, and the corpses float “like unto sea-weeds”. Lenormant, in the passage Donnelly quotes, dates the Nineveh copies made for Asshurbanabal (Ashurbanipal) to the “eighth century B.C.”; in Donald John Wiseman’s Britannica entry “Ashurbanipal” (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ashurbanipal, © Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.), Ashurbanipal flourished in the 7th century BCE and reigned 668 to 627 BCE.
The ship rests on the mountain of Nizir, and the birds go out.
"'I looked at the regions bounding the sea: toward the twelve points of the horizon; not any continent.--The vessel was borne above the land of Nizir,--the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over.--A day and a second day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over;--the third and fourth day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over;--the fifth and sixth day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over. At the approach of the seventh day, I sent out and loosed a dove. The dove went, turned, and--found no place to light on, and it came back. I sent out and loosed a swallow; the swallow went, turned, and--found no place to light on, and it came back. I sent out and loosed a raven; the raven went and saw the corpses on the waters; it ate, rested, turned, and came not back.
Ignatius Donnelly, Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, Part II, ch. III, "The Deluge of the Chaldeans", Project Gutenberg eBook #4032, public domain, quoting François Lenormant's translation of the Nineveh tablets
Khasisatra then offers a sacrifice on the peak, and he and his wife are carried away to live like the gods “at the mouth of the rivers.” Lenormant, as Donnelly quotes him, finds that the narrative “follows with great exactness the same course as that, or, rather, as those of Genesis”.
Donnelly’s case for Atlantis
Donnelly lists five points in which he sees the story pointing to Atlantis. The first is about the god who gave the warning.
In Donnelly’s account: Chronos (Saturn): The god who warned of the flood is linked to a great civilization in the Atlantic, matching Atlantis’s description.
He adds that the Romans called the Atlantic “Chronium Mare,” the Sea of Chronos. More on that god is at https://drumsofatlantis.com/chronos and https://drumsofatlantis.com/saturn.
His other points, in short: Ea, the god of the tablets, was a half-man, half-fish god of “the abyss” who brought civilization and letters, so he stands in Donnelly’s view for a maritime nation. The Chaldean ark is a true ship with a prow, a helm and a pilot, where the ark of Genesis is a chest, the form an inland people would imagine. The Chaldean flood is a full cataclysm of thunder, earthquake and water-spout, which Donnelly compares with the “dreadful day and night” in Plato. And the hero’s long voyage to find Khasisatra suggests to him a wide ocean. More on Donnelly himself is at https://drumsofatlantis.com/ignatius-donnelly. The site’s book page with the text of the Chaldean account of the deluge is at https://drumsofatlantis.com/book/the-chaldean-account-of-the-deluge-text.
